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NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION 
SINCE 1789 



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NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION 

SINCE 1789 

A Social and Political History of Modern 
Education 



BY 

EDWARD H. REISNER Ph.D. 

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION 

TEACHERS COLLEGE. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1922 



All rights reserved 

9 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 






Copyright, ig22, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1922, 



JUL 191922 



©CUB 7 45 71 



To 
MY FATHER AND MOTHER 

THIS BOOK IS 
AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 



PREFACE 

In the large view, education is public policy, related insep- 
arably to economic conditions, social organization, and politi- 
cal administration. The educator who would wisely plan 
the activities and the management of the schools, must pay 
attention to the major conditions of life outside the schools, 
and must be able to evaluate educational procedure in terms 
of far-reaching and broadly inclusive social purpose. No less 
must the statesman who would build a just, efficient, pros- 
perous, and patriotic nation, enlist the schools in his efforts 
and utilize them to effect his aims. 

Up to the outbreak of the World War, the pre-eminent 
importance of education as a phase of public policy had not 
been so clearly recognized in the United States as in some 
other great nations of the world. We had believed in the 
schools and had been generous in supporting them, but as a 
nation we had not concerned ourselves very actively with 
educational policies. The war has considerably changed this 
attitude, and we suddenly find citizens and legislatures making 
all kinds of demands upon the school system. Since many of 
the proposals that are being made among us have been exem- 
plified in the school systems of other nations, it might be well 
for us, before undertaking any radical reorganization of the 
spirit and method of American public education, to find out 
what has resulted from the application of similar policies in 
other countries. Furthermore, a study of the administrative 
systems which those other nations have built up will aid in 
guiding our heightened desire for greater educational effi- 
ciency. 

It is with these considerations in mind that the writer has 
tried to describe the major facts of the social, economic, and 
political life of France. Prussia, England, and the United 



viii PREFACE 

States since about 1789, in close relationship wtih educational 
policy and practice. As the period covered is short and the 
historical record is brought down to date, the matters treated 
of are of current concern in education, since the major con- 
ditioning factors of the period, namely, nationalism, democ- 
racy, and the factory system of industrial production, are 
with us today in more insistent form than ever before. The 
account given is necessarily brief and elementary, particu- 
larly with reference to the general social factors that surround 
and condition education. It is hoped, however, that it is 
accurate as far as it goes, and, above all, that it is unpreju- 
diced and candid. 

The book is an elaboration of a syllabus for a course in the 
history of education published in 19 19 by Teachers College, 
Columbia University, entitled Democracy and Nationalism in 
Education. In the preparation of the present work, the writer 
has made large use of source materials, particularly in the 
case of France, Prussia, and England. He has borrowed quite 
shamelessly his accounts of general social, economic, and 
political background from the works of acknowledged authori- 
ties in those fields and his indebtedness is fairly represented 
in the list of readings named at the end of chapters. Standard 
secondary accounts of education have also been studied care- 
fully, but in this field running acknowledgment has more 
often been made. For the first three chapters on the United 
States, free use has been made of Cubberley's Public Educa- 
tion in the United States and of the articles which Professor 
Cubberley has contributed to the Cyclopedia of Education, 
edited by Monroe. 

To Professor Paul Monroe of Teachers College is due 
the writer's sincere appreciation for encouragement in de- 
veloping the field of education which is the special sub- 
ject of this study. To many of his colleagues in Teachers 
College he is under obligation for advice and criticism lying 
within their special fields of mastery. Professor William H. 
Kilpatrick has the writer's lively gratitude for his valuable 
suggestions of changes or additions made after reading the 



PREFACE 



IX 



entire book in manuscript form. The writer's greatest indebt- 
edness is to his colleague, Dr. I. L. Kandel, whose extensive 
and accurate scholarship and first-hand knowledge of European 
school conditions have made his criticisms and suggestions 
invaluable. Dr. Kandel, to the decided improvement of the 
book, read it in manuscript form, and throughout the course 
of its preparation he has been most generously subject to call 
for suggestions and information. 

E. H. R. 
New York City, 
June, 1922. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Social Factors that Have Conditioned Western 

Education Since the French Revolution .... i 

PART I 

FRANCE 

II. The French Revolution: Its Educational Promise 

and Achievement 7 

The Old Regime. The National Assembly and Tal- 
leyrand's Education Bill. The Legislative Assembly 
and Condorcet's Report. The Convention and the 
Directory and Daunou's Law. 

III. Napoleon and the Imperial French University . . 33 

IV. The Restoration Monarchy and Educational Con- 

servatism 43 

V. The Upper-middle-class Monarchy and the Estab- 
lishment of a State System of Primary Schools . 46 
The State of Primary Education. The Primary 
Education Law of 1833. Improvements in Education 
under the July Monarchy. 

VI. The Second Republic and the Second Empire and the 

Revival of Church Influence in Education ... 63 
The Second Republic. The Education Law of 
1850. Government and Education after December 2, 
1851. 

VII. The Third Republic and Further Developments of 

National Education 79 

The Ferry Laws. Moral and Civic Instruction. 
Centralization of Educational Administration. Vo- 
cational Education and the Higher Primary School. 
Democracy in Education under the Third Republic. 

PART II 

PRUSSIA 

VIII. The Regeneration of Prussia and the Organization of 

AN Efficient National System of Education . . . 121 
No Efficient National System of Education before 
the Nineteenth Century. The Reforms Following 



xii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PACE 

the Treaty of Tilsit. The Organization of a National 
System of Education. The Conflict between Liberal 
and Conservative Political Opinion. 

IX. MlDCENTURY POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS AND ThEIR Ef- 

TECTs ON Public Education 151 

The Advent of a New Political and Intellectual 
Period. Official Reorganization of the Teachers 
Seminaries. The Regulations of 1854. Prussia under 
William I and Bismarck, 

X. Prussia and the German Empire 176 

Prussia in the Empire. Economic Expansion of 
the Empire. Vocational Education. The Kultur- 
kampf. The General Regulations of 1872. The Fight 
against Social Democracy. Militant Nationalism 
after 1890. The Modern Prussian System of Educa- 
tion. Nationalistic Propaganda by Means of the 
Schools. The Lack of Democracy in German Edu- 
cation. The GermanRepublic. 



PART III 

ENGLAND 

XI. The Old Order and the Industrial Revolution . . 221 

England in the Late Eighteenth Century. The 
Industrial Revolution. Philanthropy in English Edu- 
cation. Early Parliamentary Interest in Education. 

XII. Benevolent Aristocracy and Early State Interven- 
tion IN Education 243 

The New Spirit of Political Reform. The First 
Parliamentary Grants for Education. The Report 
of the Newcastle Commission. Secondary Education 
the Object of Parliamentary Inquiry. 

XIII. Political Democracy and the Achievement of a Na- 

tional System or Education 273 

Political and Social Reform. The Elementary 
Education Act of 1870. The Third Reform Act. The 
Cross Commission on Elementary Education. Sec- 
ondary Education as .Effected by New Social and 
Economic Conditions. Report of the Bryce Com- 
mission on Secondary Education. The Education 
Act of 1902. 

XIV. The New Liberalism and the Fisher Act .... 300 

New Political Alignments. Social Legislation. The 
Education Act of 1918, Commonly Called the Fisher 
Act. The Present English System of Schools. 



CONTENTS 



Xlll 



PART IV 
THE UNITED STATES 



XV. 



XVI. 



XVII. 



XVIII. 



The New Federal State and the Passing of an Old 

Political Order 323 

The Degree of Political Union among the Original 
States. The Constitution of the United States. The 
Federal Constitution and Democracy. The Frontier 
and Its Influence on the Suffrage. The Nature of 
American Democracy. The Federal Government and 
Education. State Governments and Education. 
Local Education Authorities. The Elementary 
School. Secondary Education. Higher Education. 
Philanthropic School Societies. 

Sectionalism and Democracy 368 

The Triumph of Sectionalism. The Common People 
Take the Helm. Progress in the Development of 
State .Administrative Systems. The Common School 
Revival. State Educational Administration. Local 
Education .Authorities. The Public Schools Made 
Free. The Extension of the Elementary School Up- 
ward. Educational Influences of the New Immigra- 
tion. The American School System by 1861. 



41S 



Material Growth and Cultural Unification 

Economic Development of the North and West. 
Increase in Centralization in Government. Recon- 
struction and Education. State and Local School 
Administration. City School Administration. The 
High School. Industrial Education. The Prepara- 
tion of Teachers. Compulsory .Attendance. Rural 
Schools. The Changes of Twenty-live Years. 

The Development of a National Consciousness in 

Education 468 

Economic and Social Conditions after i8go. Ex- 
tension of the Prerogatives of the National Govern- 
ment. The Practical Disappearance of Sectionalism. 
The Federal Government and Public Education. 
State Educational Administration. Local Education 
Authorities. Local School Supervision. City School 
Administration. Public Secondary Education. Vo- 
cational Education. Continuation Schools. Com- 
pulsory .Attendance. The Professional Education 
of Teachers and Supervisors. Private and Parochial 
Schools. Civic and Patriotic Instruction. 

Index S6i 



NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION 
SINCE 1789 

CHAPTER I 

THE SOCIAL FACTORS THAT HAVE CON- 
DITIONED WESTERN EDUCATION 
SINCE THE FRENCH 
REVOLUTION 

Three great social movements have conditioned the educa- 
tional developments of the last century and a half of Western 
history. They are: (a) the increasing importance of nation- 
alism as a form of political organization; (6) the gradual 
enlargement of the electorate in control of government, and 
(c) the transformation of economic and social life which has 
been brought about by the application of a series of important 
mechanical inventions to the arts of communication and to 
the processes of the manufacture and distribution of goods. 
For convenience we may refer to these major conditioning 
factors of education as nationalism, democracy, and the indus- 
trial revolution. They have been closely interrelated in their 
development and each has had a host of ramifications. In 
son)e respects they have supplemented one another, while in 
other respects they have been antagonistic. At all events, each 
has had important influence in the creation of the present social 
situation and each has entered with power into the conditions 
of public education. 

Contrast between American and European Conditions. 
— While nationalism, democracy, and the industrial revolution 
have influenced the entire Western world, their manifestation 
in Europe has been different from that in the United States. 



2 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 17S9 

In Europe, in the latter part of the eighteenth century and the 
early part of the nineteenth, a new and extremely vital type 
of nationalism sprang into existence as a result of the French 
Revolutionary and the Napoleonic wars. In its beginnings, 
this new nationalism was apparently closely allied to liberal 
conceptions of political rights; but nationalism continued to 
govern the policies of European governments, while the prom- 
ise of democracy was engulfed in a flood of political reaction- 
ism. After the Congress of Vienna (181 5), it was the indus- 
trial revolution that brought about in Europe gradual exten- 
sions of the suffrage and ultimately manhood suffrage. In the 
United States, on the other hand, the full development of a 
democracy based on manhood suffrage had taken place before 
1830; that is to say, before any large degree of national unity 
had been achieved and before the industrialization of American 
life had made much headway. If democracy in the countries 
of Western Europe has been the result of the efforts of the 
factory workers to secure the ballot for the improvement of 
the conditions of labor, in the United States democracy has 
come as a result of the abundance of free land on the ever- 
extending frontier and from the simplicity and the naturalness 
of pioneer life. The effects of the industrial revolution on 
American institutions have been appreciably felt only since the 
Civil War. And so it is seen that, while the three factors of 
nationalism, democracy, and the industrial revolution have 
operated both in Western Europe and in the United States, 
they have done so in different order, with different emphasis, 
and with quite different effect. 

Major Social Movements of the Period All Favor Public 
Education. — It may be said that each of these factors of 
nationalism, democracy, and the industrial revolution might 
alone have accounted in considerable measure for the present 
status of public education. Each implies the necessity for an 
educated people. Nationalism calls for universal education in 
order that there may be a general development of individual 
power — physical, mental, and moral — so that the nation com- 
posed of individuals may realize its full military and economic 



SOCIAL FACTORS CONDITIONING EDUCATION 3 

strength. Democracy calls for assiduous devotion to educa- 
tion in order that the great mass of the voters may be equipped 
for the responsible duties and privileges of citizenship. The 
economic revolution, with its extensive application of science, 
art, and superior forms of management to the business of 
everyday life, calls in its turn for the education of all the people 
in order that they may be efficient economic units, productive 
and prosperous for their individual satisfaction as well as for 
national strength. 

In the pages which follow, the materials introduced have 
been selected from the point of view of their bearing upon the 
major social influences named above. The necessity of con- 
serving space has led to laying the emphasis, in the treatment 
of each of the four nations considered, upon the particular 
development which that nation's history has especially exem- 
plified. Thus, Prussia has been seen as representative of the 
extreme development of nationalism in education; France as 
showing a type of accommodation between the demands of 
nationalism and those of democracy; while in the parts of the 
book devoted to those countries, the influence of the indus- 
trial revolution has been given slight attention. In the story 
of England, the dominant theme throughout has been the re- 
sponse of a conservative society in terms of education to the 
conditions brought about by the revolution in industrial life. 
America has been accepted as showing an extreme type of 
democracy responding gradually to the necessity of self-disci- 
pline and self-cultivation through public education and only 
in recent years feeling in marked degree the influence either 
of the industrial revolution or of nationalism. 

The writer has tried to describe the educational evolution of 
each of these four countries as it has taken place in response 
to changing social, economic, and political conditions. The 
narrative does not attempt to solve problems or teach lessons, 
but rather to bring concrete educational situations before the 
reader for his own observation and judgment. It is to be 
hoped and expected that the serial presentation of the educa- 
tional problems and practices of four important modern na- 



4 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

tions may reveal to us in a new light and with greater clearness 
the complex educational problems of our own day, and that it 
may give us an enlarged conception of the responsibility and 
the promise of public education in a democratic state. 



PART I 
FRANCE 



CHAPTER II 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: ITS EDU- 
CATIONAL PROMISE AND 
ACHIEVEMENT 

The Old Regime 

The Absolute Monarchy and the Privileged Classes. — 
In order to appreciate fully the tremendous significance of the 
political and educational changes that were accomplished 
through the French Revolution, it is necessary to understand 
the nature of the system which it brought to an end. The 
government under Louis XVT was an absolute monarchy — the 
government of France was simply the extension of the will of 
the king. The king's power over his subjects was practically 
absolute wherever he cared to set aside the operation of ordi- 
nary law, and no one was secure against distortions of justice 
or even against imprisonment without warrant or means of 
redress. There was no representative assembly for the making 
of laws or the determination of public policy. The adminis- 
tration of government in the provinces into which the country 
was divided was accomplished through intendants, who were 
the appointees and the personal representatives of the king. 

The nobility, which under mediaeval conditions had per- 
formed real social and political functions, had been deprived of 
all political significance. They served mainly as the personnel 
of the king's brilliant court. Maintained partly by the income 
from their estates and largely by sinecure pensions and salaries 
provided by the king, they spent their time in the diversions 
of society. 

The higher officials of the church were often worldly men 
who had been appointed from strictly personal or political 

7 



8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

motives. They absented themselves from their legitimate fields 
of religious activity and frequented the court, where commonly 
they entered with abandon into all its worldliness and excess. 
In such instances the cure of souls was left to the lowly parish 
priest who toiled among the poor while the bishops and abbots 
and other high Church dignitaries flirted and gamed and in- 
trigued at Versailles. 

The Bourgeoisie. — If the first and second estates — or, in 
other words, the nobility and the clergy — had degenerated from 
positions of large social importance and had become mere 
supernumeraries in the real administration of French govern- 
ment, the third estate, otherwise known as the bourgeoisie or 
the middle class, had risen to a position of great power and 
influence. They furnished the members of the bureaucracy 
through which the civil administration was carried on. They 
were in complete possession of the courts of justice and could 
delay or defeat the operation of the law to meet their personal 
ends. They were the bankers, the manufacturers, the profes- 
sional class. Through their wealth or the political favor which 
they were able to win, the members of the middle class fre- 
quently acquired titles of nobility. In general, their interests 
were much more closely assimilated to those of the upper 
classes than to those of the submerged masses of the peasantry 
and the artisans. The bourgeoisie were the backbone of the 
civil administration; they were the foundation of France's 
financial credit; they furnished the great majority of France's 
intellectual elite. Of actual political representation or power 
on their own initiative, they had none, because there were no 
political institutions through which they could make their 
will effective. 

Peasants and Workingmen. — The condition of the peas- 
ants was altogether unfavorable. Serfdom, to be sure, had 
largely disappeared; but even where the peasants enjoyed 
freedom of person a great number of mediaeval dues and re- 
strictions continued to plague and hamper them. The great 
burden of taxation which was necessary to maintain the mili- 
tary and civil establishments and to support the wasteful 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EDUCATION 9 

extravagance of the royal court rested almost exclusively upon 
their backs. Toil as they might, the tax collector would make 
away with all the returns of their labor above the barest 
minima of a miserable existence. 

^ Education under the Old Regime. — Corresponding to the 
political and social aspects of the old regime, there was a 
system of education which served as a means of its perpetua- 
tion. Largely through the Church, to which he had tacitly dele- 
gated this function, the king controlled education in the interest 
of maintaining the existing order. Instruction in the univer- 
sities had about it none of the spirit of research, being mainly 
the lifeless reproduction of the formulas of an earlier time. 
Everything taught therein was in the spirit and the letter of 
orthodox religion and to the glory of "His Most Christian 
Majesty." The secondary schools were in the hands of re- 
ligious orders and gave traditional and devitalized instruction 
to the sons of the middle and upper classes. As for the children 
of the common people, such facilities of instruction as they en- 
joyed were provided by religious associations of men and 
women. The schools maintained by these teaching congrega- 
tions were by no means universally supplied and their main 
purpose was moral and religious instruction. The great mass 
of the French poorer classes were altogether illiterate. 

The National Assembly (May 5, 1789, to September 14, 
1 791) AND Talleyrand's Education Bill 

Political Reforms of the National Assembly. — The 
French Revolution began by being no revolution at all, but 
rather a council of representatives of the three estates of France 
elected to propose means for bolstering up a tottering financial 
system. The government stood prepared to trade off as 
advantageously as possible social reforms for money grants, 
and the estates of France had prepared cahiers (notebooks) 
of grievances which their representatives were to have reme- 
died as far as possible. But even before the three estates had 
been organized for the work which they had been called to- 



10 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

gether to perform, a contest over the matter of balance of 
power in the council arose between the Third Estate and the 
two privileged estates, with the result that the representatives 
of the Third Estate, hitherto without political recognition or 
social privilege, declared themselves a National Assembly of 
the French people and invited the representatives of the other 
estates to join them. Upon royal order this invitation was 
accepted. The king's later effort to suppress the Assembly by 
armed force led to an uprising of the Paris Commune in 
support of the Assembly. The success of the uprising of the 
people of Paris was immediate and complete, and the National 
Assembly was saved. It promptly set to work to abolish the 
old regime and its numerous relics of feudalism and to draft 
a constitution. 

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 
prefixed to the Constitution of 1791, stated in a positive way 
the principles of security from those abuses which had been 
abolished. This declaration asserted in part that the aim of 
all political association was the preservation of the natural and 
inalienable rights of man, which were liberty, property, se- 
curity, and resistance to oppression, and that the principle of 
all sovereignty resided essentially in the nation. Law, it de- 
clared, was the expression of the common will, and every 
citizen had the right to participate personally or through his 
representatives in its formation. It called for protection 
against the subversion of justice by arbitrary power and 
guaranteed freedom of conscience, freedom of the press, and 
equity and universality of taxation. 

The Constitution set up by the National, or Constituent, 
Assembly provided for a limited monarchy with the king in 
possession of a limited veto power. The French nation was 
divided for administrative purposes into departments, which 
in turn were divided and subdivided into districts, cantons and 
communes. All officials, including judges, of these various 
political divisions, were to be elected. The franchise was 
limited, in apparent inconsistency with the provisions of the 
Declaration of Rights, to those who paid taxes equal to three 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EDUCATION ii 

days' wages, and there was established a property qualification 
for all office holders. Trial by jury was guaranteed for all 
criminal cases and a system of local and appellate courts was 
organized. The legislative function of the government was to 
be in the hands of a single chamber, the members of which 
were to be elected by the departments. 

The Constitution of 1791 is thus seen to represent a com- 
plete overturn of the old system of absolutism and privilege 
and to be democratic in a very true sense of the word. But 
it is equally plain that the writers of the Constitution intended 
to have a democracy which was limited by the possession of 
property. If the new order of things had changed radically 
in contrast with the old, it nevertheless realized only the 
aspirations for political power of the bourgeoisie, or middle 
class, and withheld from the great mass of artisans and agri- 
cultural laborers the right of active participation in political 
affairs. 

The National Assembly and the Church. — A phase of 
the work of the National Assembly that is of great signifi- 
cance in the history of French education is its treatment of 
the Church. The state confiscated the lands of the Church 
and sold a large part of them, applying the proceeds to govern- 
mental purposes. Monasteries and nunneries were dissolved 
and the monks and nuns were pensioned by the state, while 
the salaries of the clergy were carried on the civil service list. 
The opposition which was aroused within the Church to this 
policy of confiscation and interference rallied that venerable 
institution against the new radical political policies and the 
new nationalism. As a result, there has been from that time 
to the present in France an alliance, more or less influential 
at various periods, between conservative or reactionary politics 
and the Catholic Church. 

The Enlarged Importance of Education in the New 
Political Order. — When the Old Regime was overthrown and 
a system of representative political institutions was estab- 
lished, participation in the national life was extended at least 
as widely as the suffrage. In addition to the voters, every 



12 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

peasant who had had his hunger for independent landowner- 
ship satisfied by the agrarian reforms of the National Assembly 
and the sale of Church and forfeited lands, might be expected 
to feel identified with the fortunes of the nation. Immediately 
the complex problem arose of preparing the citizens for their 
new privileges and responsibilities and of welding them into 
social unity. It was seen to be necessary that all the people 
should be able to read the official French language; that they 
should be informed respecting the political institutions under 
which they were to live; that enthusiasm for those institutions 
should be engendered in them; that they should be assimilated 
to the historical tradition of France and made to feel a pride 
in their heritage; and that their bodies be strengthened and 
trained, their minds be stimulated and expanded, and their 
moral purposes be formed and set in the mold of the new 
social and political order. To accomplish this work of human 
creation and regeneration it was seen to be essential that there 
be a system of education that was dependent in its purposes 
and its administration upon the civil state. 

The Constitution of 1791 contained the following provision 
regarding education: "There shall be created and organized 
a system of public instruction common to all the citizens and 
gratuitous in respect to those subjects of instruction that are 
indispensable to all men. Schools of various grades shall be 
supplied according to need over the entire kingdom. Com- 
memorative days shall be designated for the purpose of pre- 
serving the memory of the French Revolution, of developing 
the spirit of fraternity among all citizens and of attaching 
them to the constitution, the country and its laws." Consis- 
tently with the constitutional provision for education, the 
National Assembly appointed a Committee on Public Instruc- 
tion, in behalf of which a report was made and a bill pre- 
sented for the consideration of the Assembly by M. Talleyrand- 
Perigord on September 10 and 11, 1791. 

Talleyrand's Education Bill. — Talleyrand's Bill is an in- 
dication of a new attitude toward education which had been 
induced by the establishment of a new political order. It 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EDUCATION 13 

recognized education as a state function and not a church 
function. It proposed to employ the schools as an agency 
for the promotion of a national culture. It planned an organ- 
ization of schools consistent with the increased participation of 
the people in government. 

A division in principle was made in the Bill between those 
subjects of instruction which were "indispensable to the indi- 
vidual as a man and a citizen" and those which were needed 
only in preparation for professional life. The former were to 
be free of cost and open to the children of all citizens without 
distinction, while the latter were to be paid for. Such a dis- 
tinction was essentially that which has existed in Europe be- 
tween primary and secondary education down to the present 
time and only reflected the half-way democracy which France 
had achieved by the Constitution of 179 1. 

Primary Education. — Truly a high and difficult objective 
was set up in the Bill for the primary schools, for their pur- 
pose was declared to be "to teach all children their first and 
indispensable duties, to instil in them the principles which 
ought to direct their actions; and to make them happier men 
and more useful citizens through preserving them from the 
dangers of ignorance." These results were to be achieved 
through reading, writing, the simple elements of the French 
language, the rules of elementary arithmetic, the elements of 
mensuration, place geography of limited scope, and some well- 
conceived moral and religious material. The children were 
to be taught the principles of religion and the first elements 
of morals in such a way as to show the interdependence of the 
members of society. They were to be instructed in the duties 
common to all citizens and in the laws which it was necessary 
for all to know. 

The Bill did not specify any administrative unit for the 
establishment of primary schools, but left this to the judgment 
of the departmental governments acting upon the demands of 
local initiative. No compulsion was laid upon the communes 
to establish schools nor upon parents to send their children to 
the schools after they had been established. The Committee 



14 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

on Public Instruction relied upon popular enthusiasm for edu- 
cation to establish schools and to send the children to them 
for instruction. The teacher of the primary school was to 
receive from the state a fixed salary and to be provided with 
a schoolroom. His professional fitness was to be insured 
through official examinations; his loyalty to the state was to 
be guaranteed by a civil oath. 

Secondary Education. — The Bill provided for secondary 
education through a system of "district" schools, the number 
of which was to be decided upon by the government of each 
department. The double purpose of these schools was to give 
general cultural development and to furnish special preparation 
for entrance to professional life. The curriculum as described 
in the Bill was a decided innovation in its emphasis upon 
scientific and social subjects and the verriacular. The prin- 
ciples of religion, ethics, languages, logic, rhetoric, geography, 
history, mathematics, and physics were to be distributed over 
a period of seven years, while special attention was to be paid 
to physical training and military exercises. In the Grammar 
Course, comprising the first two years, republican morality 
was to be made the central theme, and the pupils were to learn 
by heart the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The motive 
of creating a national culture is shown in the relatively great 
emphasis which was to be laid upon the French language and 
literature and upon comparative and French history. The 
secondary school teacher was to be made a member of the 
national civil administration through uniform examinations to 
determine his eligibility, through civil appointment and legally 
safeguarded tenure of office, through a state contribution to 
his salary, and through his subscribing to a civil oath. 

Scholarships in the District Schools. — Even though the 
instruction in the district schools was not to be free, a system 
of scholarships was provided for in the Bill which was intended 
to keep such schools at least partly accessible to poor, but 
gifted youths. At least ten scholarships were to be provided 
in the principal school of each department in their behalf. 
Existing educational foundations were to be applied to this 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EDUCATION 15 

object, but where such funds were insufficient, the expense 
of the scholarships was to be borne by the state. 

A third and higher grade of schools was named "schools 
of the department." They were professional in nature and 
comprised schools of religion, medicine, law, and military 
science. 

At the head of the state system of education proposed by 
Talleyrand was to be a National Institute, made up of the 
most noted of aU men distinguished for their learning. Their 
activities were to combine research and lecturing, with the 
occasional added duty of offering advanced instruction to 
those capable of profiting by it. The aim of this body was 
to be, however, the advancement of science, art, and letters 
into new fields rather than the imparting of what was already 
known. 

National Administration. — In order to secure unity of pur- 
pose, completeness of organization and uniformity of adminis- 
tration over the whole kingdom, a Commission of Public In- 
struction was to be formed in Paris. Its six members, bearing 
the name of Commissioners of Education, were to be ap- 
pointed by the king; but they were not to be subject to re- 
moval except with the consent of the legislative body. Acting 
under the orders of the Commission were to be inspectors, 
appointed by the king, who were to be sent wherever at any 
time their presence might be desirable. Under the care of 
the Commission were to be the celebration of the national 
holidays with fitting pageantry and other exercises, the en- 
couragement of the arts, and the direction of public libraries, 
the National Library, and all library exchanges. The Com- 
mission was to have charge of all the property and the reve- 
nues devoted to education and it was to be called on for an 
annual report to the legislative body on the state of education 
in the country at large. 

In order that tyranny of the majority might be avoided as 
well as the tyranny of the king, the Bill proposed to allow 
any private party who would submit to the general laws of 
public instruction, to set up a school^ provided that he would 



1 6 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

give notice of such action to the municipal council and publish 
the regulations of his school. 

As only a few days of life remained to the National Assembly 
after Talleyrand had reported his Bill, the members were 
unwilling to undertake in the short time available the con- 
sideration of so weighty and intricate a matter as the organi- 
zation of an entirely new system of education along lines so 
thoroughly experimental. Talleyrand urged the imp)ortance of 
the measure, pointing out that the needs were infinitely press- 
ing, for the universities had everywhere suspended their opera- 
tions, and the colleges were without discipline, without pro- 
fessors, without pupils. But his plea was not granted. The 
Assembly ordered that the Bill be printed and distributed, 
and recommended its consideration to the Legislative Assem- 
bly, which its labors had called into being. 

The Legislative Assembly (October i, 1791, to September 

21, 1792) AND CoNDORCET's RePORT 

Revolutionary feeling had grown rapidly in France since 
the calling of the Estates General. 'Jacobin societies had been 
organized in all parts of the country for the active propaga- 
tion of theories of extreme democracy. Styles of dress and 
salutation were changing to follow the customs of the working 
classes. This radical sentiment had its most extreme expres- 
sion in the Parisian mob, which had free access to the chamber 
in which the Legislative Assembly met and there terrorized 
its members. The attacks upon France by foreign monarchs 
who were interested in the suppression of revolutionary ten- 
dencies and in the reinstatement of the old regime, strength- 
ened the drift toward democracy and alienated the affections 
of the French people from their king. On the tenth of August, 
1792, the Parisian mob, organized by the Jacobins and having 
the support of the Mountain within the Assembly, stormed the 
king's palace and accomplished the suspension of the king by 
vote of the Assembly. Three days later the Assembly sum- 
moned a convention to draw up a republican constitution. 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EDUCATION 17 

The Legislative Assembly was elected in accordance with 
the provisions of the Constitution of 1791, but the number 
of radicals among its members was out of all proportion to 
the prevalence of radical political notions in the country at 
large. The active planning of the radical Jacobin element had 
eliminated from the voting for members a large part of the 
voters, and violence and fraud at the elections had contributed 
still further to increase the representation of the radical Re- 
publicans. The political complexion of the Legislative was, 
on the whole, much more radical than had been that of the 
National Assembly. A certain group which occupied the Right 
of the Chamber were loosely united in support of constitutional 
government, while another group which was composed of the 
Girondins and the radical Mountain and occupied the Left of 
the Chamber, were desirous of still further democratization 
of the government and the overthrow of the conservative 
constitution. A numerical majority, without any definite 
policy, occupied the Center. In the course of events, the 
Center fell largely under the influence of the radical Left. 

The educational situation was made even worse than it had 
been under the National Assembly by reason of the suppression 
of all teaching congregations by a law passed August 18, 1792. 

Condorcet's Report. — On the twentieth and twenty-first of 
April 1792, Condorcet presented to the Legislative Assembly 
a report and a bill on the general organization of public in- 
struction in the nation on behalf of the Committee on Public 
Instruction of which he was a member. Condorcet belonged 
to the party of the Girondins, who supported a radically demo- 
cratic phase of government. He is most generally known as 
the author of "A Sketch of a Historical Chart of the Progress 
of the Human Spirit," in which he elaborated his belief in the 
unlimited perfectibility of the human race. While radically 
democratic in his political views, he was opposed to the terror- 
ism and mob-rule of the Mountain, by whom he was later 
hunted down and imprisoned and at whose hands, directly or 
indirectly, he lost his life. 

The spirit and purpose of Condorcet's educational program 



1 8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

for the new nation is clearly indicated in the following words 
with which his report begins: 

"To offer all individuals of the human race the means of 
providing for their wants, of insuring their welfare, of knowing 
and exercising their rights, of knowing and fulfilling their 
duties; 

"To assure each one the opportunity of making himself 
more efficient in his industry, of making himself more capable 
of performing social functions to which he may be called, of 
developing to the fullest extent the talents which he has re- 
ceived from nature; and by that means to establish among the 
citizens an equality in fact, making real the political equality 
recognized by the law; 

"Such ought to be the first aim of national education." 

The system of schools through which this ideal of demo- 
cratic education was to be achieved comprised four distinct 
grades of instruction; namely, primary schools, secondary 
schools^ institutes, and lycees. A National Society of Arts and 
Sciences was to be formed for the general supervision and 
administration of the educational system and for the encour- 
agement of scientific research, fine arts, and literature. 

The Primary Schools. — One primary school was to be 
provided for every settlement having a population of four 
hundred, and in sparsely settled districts schools were to be 
provided for all villages found more than two thousand yards 
from a place containing four hundred inhabitants. The objec- 
tive of the lowest grade of school was to make all men capable 
of performing those simple public functions, such as jury 
service or communal administration, to which any man might 
in all probability be called. The course of study was to in- 
clude reading and writing, some elementary notions of grammar, 
the rules of arithmetic, including mensuration and simple 
methods of land measurement, elementary notions of geog- 
raphy and the processes of agriculture and the trades, the 
simpler ideas of ethics and the rules of conduct derived there- 
from and, finally, "such rules of social organization as one 
is able to bring down to the comprehension of the child." On 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EDUCATION 19 

Sundays, the teacher of the primary schools was to be expected 
to give lectures open to all members of the community. This 
form of "extension education" was intended to furnish to 
those whose earlier education had been neglected an oppor- 
tunity to make up such deficiencies, as well as to keep them 
in touch with new legislative enactments, new developments 
of agriculture and the trades, and to teach them the use of 
such means of self-education as the dictionary, the index of 
a book, and maps and charts. 

The Secondary Schools. — The secondary schools were in- 
tended for children whose parents would be able to dispense 
with their services for a longer time than was possible in the 
case of the children who might attend the primary school. 
In his use of the woni secondary to describe this second grade 
of school, Condorcet departs from the customary European 
usage. The secondary school in the sense in which the word 
is now used on the Continent is represented in the third grade 
of education proposed by Condorcet under the name of "insti- 
tute." The secondary school of his plan, as will be seen from 
an examination of the purpose of the school and its curricu- 
lum, corresponds very closely to the present higher primary 
school of France, the middle school of Prussia, the English 
central school, and, in many ways, to the American high school. 

Every arrondissement and every town of four thousand 
inhabitants was to have such a school. The curriculum was to 
include "some notions of mathematics, natural history, the 
chemistry necessary to the arts, some more advanced develop- 
ments of the principles of ethics and social science, and ele- 
mentary lessons of commerce." Here again the teacher was 
to be expected to give weekly lectures open to the public. 

The Institutes. — The third grade of instruction, the insti- 
tute, was the secondary school as that term is used in Europe 
today. It was intended as a more liberal preparation for life 
than could be provided in the lower schools, and as a stepping- 
stone to professional or scholarly studies. Of these schools 
there were to be one hundred ten, to be distributed among all 
the departments of France. The student was to be allowed 



20 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

great freedom in the choice of his studies. In the distribution 
of professorships in the institutes, the natural and social 
sciences were favored over the classical studies, but oppor- 
tunity was furnished for the study of the classics if the student 
desired them. Prominence was given to ethical and social 
studies, as would be expected. In justification of this empha- 
sis, Condorcet said, "How can we hope to raise the level of 
public morality unless we make moral in the first place those 
men who can enlighten the people and are destined for leader- 
ship, by means of an exact and rigorous analysis of the moral 
sentiments, the ideas resulting from them, and the principles 
of conduct which are their consequence? 'Good laws,' said 
Plato, 'are those which the people love more than life itself.' 
But yet, how good would the laws be if, in order to execute 
them, it would be necessary to employ a force foreign to the 
will of the people and to bring to justice the support of tyr- 
anny? In order that the citizens may love the laws without 
ceasing to be truly free, in order that they may preserve that 
rational independence without which liberty is only a passion 
and not a virtue, it is necessary for them to know those 
principles of natural justice, those essential rights of man of 
which the laws are only the development or the application. 
It is necessary to distinguish in laws the implications of those 
rights and means more or less happily combined with them 
for their realization; it is necessary to love the former because 
dictated by justice and the latter because inspired by practical 
wisdom. A distinction must be made between that devotion 
of reason which one owes to laws which it approves of and 
that submission, that external support, which the citizen owes 
to them, even when his intelligence shows him their danger or 
imperfection. It is necessary that in loving the laws, we 
should know how to judge them." 

The Lycees. — The fourth grade of instruction was given the 
name lycee. The lycees were to be true institutions of higher 
learning in which all subjects of instruction were to be taught 
in their fullest extent. They were not to be professional 
schools, but schools devoted to advanced studies of science, 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EDUCATION 21 

languages, literature, and art. They were intended to be not 
only the medium for the transmission of learning at its highest 
level, but the nurseries of scholarly research. There were 
to be nine lycees distributed over the kingdom. No pains were 
to be spared to make them the equals of the best universities 
in Europe. 

National Scholars. — Condorcet planned that instruction in 
all four of the grades of instruction was to be free. He realized, 
however, that the tuition fee was not the only, or even the 
greatest, hindrance to universal participation in educational 
advantages, and in order to equalize opportunities for gifted 
sons of poor parents, he proposed an extensive system of 
scholarships. Thirty-eight hundred fifty children, chosen for 
their promise, were to be maintained as "national scholars" 
in schools of all grades. Out of each grade of school were to 
be chosen annually a number of the most able students for 
an extended period of study at public expense in the next 
higher grade. 

The National Society of Arts and Sciences. — The high- 
est grade of education — as distinguished from instruction, for 
its members were to do no teaching — was to be a National 
Society of Arts and Sciences. The concern of its members was 
to be with the perfecting, the encouragement, the application, 
and the spread of all useful discoveries and inventions. They 
were to be the instructors of the entire generation and the ac- 
celerators of human progress. The National Society was also to 
have executive oversight over the national system of instruc- 
tion. It was to be the head of an educational hierarchy ex- 
tending down to the humblest primary school. It was to be 
responsible, in the last analysis, for the certification and the 
appointment of teachers, the supervision of schools, the selec- 
tion of textbooks, the training of teachers, and the progress 
of education in general. 

Academic Freedom. — iThe degree of freedom which Con- 
dorcet proposed for the National Society of Arts and Sciences 
and for the higher teaching institutions deserves a great deal 
of attention in connection with any consideration of the prin- 



22 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

ciples of education in a democracy. He said in his report, 
"Freedom of teaching constitutes, in a way, one of the rights 
of the human race. . . . Since truth alone is useful and since 
every error is an evil, by what right would any power, no 
matter what it might be, dare to determine what is truth and 
what is error? A power which could forbid the teaching of an 
opinion contrary to that which has served as the basis for 
enacted laws, would attack directly the freedom of thought, 
would contradict the purpose of every social institution, 
namely, the improvement of the laws, which necessarily fol- 
lows from conflicts of opinion and the spread of enlightenment. 
For that matter, the French Constitution makes such inde- 
pendence our rigorous duty. It has recognized that the nation 
has the inalienable rnd indefeasible right of reforming all its 
laws. . . . The intention of the Constitution is that all the 
laws should be discussed, that all political theories should be 
allowed to be taught and opposed, that no system of social 
organization should be offered to enthusiasm or to prejudice 
as the object of superstitious worship, but that all political 
beliefs and systems should be presented to reason as different 
possibilities among which she has the right -to choose. . . . 
Should we iiave in reality respected the inalienable inde- 
pendence of the people if we had permitted the government 
to fortify any particular system of belief with all the weight 
which universal instruction would give it; and would not the 
power which would arrogate to itself the right to choose our 
opinions have veritably usurped a portion of the national 
sovereignty?" 

In accordance with the sentiments expressed in the quota- 
tion given above, the Bill introduced by Condorcet proposed 
to remove the educational system from all forms of government 
influence by placing education in the hands of the National 
Society of Arts and Sciences and making that body self-per- 
petuating. Whether or not we would agree that the establish- 
ment of a hierarchy of schoolmen would make for the greatest 
freedom of thought and would cause the educational system 
to be most responsive to social change, we can at least agree 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EDUCATION 23 

with Condorcet as to the importance of keeping open all the 
sources of enlightened public opinion. 

It was not proposed, however, to extend to the teachers of 
the primary and the secondary schools freedom to teach what 
and how they pleased, on the grounds that the attainments 
of the teachers of these schools did not warrant giving them 
so much liberty. In their case, freedom would result, it was 
thought, in superficiality. They were to teach the materials 
approved by the higher educational authorities. But all 
teachers of the two higher grades of school and all members 
of the National Society were to be freed from all external 
control over their classroom or official utterances and to be 
encouraged to seek truth whatever it might turn out to be. 

Condorcet's Report was presented during the last days of 
the life of the Legislative Assembly, at a time when the mem- 
bers were eagerly discussing the question of war with Austria. 
It was voted that the Bill be printed; but it was never dis- 
cussed by the Assembly. Thus a second legislative body of 
the French Revolution passed out of existence without making 
any legal provision for that universal education which the 
Constitution called for. 

Estimate of the Significance of the Report. — From the 
standpoint of the possibility of putting into effect the plans 
of Condorcet at the time when they were proposed to the Legis- 
lative Assembly, one is almos t justified in describing them, 
with Duruy,^ as chimerical. France was then bankrupt, torn 
by political factions, without any tradition of public educa- 
tion, without any machinery for its realization, and with the 
gravest of foreign complications threatening her existence. 
However, the Report is of the highest value when considered 
as a document for succeeding centuries rather than as a law 
to be put into immediate effect. Judged from the standpoint 
of the provisions that are made for public education in many 
countries today, the plan is a masterpiece of prophetic insight 
and true feeling for the instrumentalities of democratic edu- 
cation. A great part of this prophecy and bill of democratic 

' Duruy, L'Instruction Publiqtie et la Revolution. 



24 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

educational rights has already been realized in the free coun- 
tries of the world, and much that has not been realized as yet 
is recognized as bound to come in the future if democracy 
is to endure. 



The Convention and the Directory (September 22, 1792, 
TO November 9, 1799) and Daunou's Law 

Political Composition of the Convention. — Upon the 
action of the Legislative Assembly in deposing Louis XVI the 
necessity immediately arose of calling a new representative 
body to determine upon a constitution. Again the radical 
elements were well organized and interfered with the casting 
of the vote through the terrorization of moderate voters. By 
the most high-handed methods the Paris Commune, under the 
guidance of Robespierre, secured the election of a violent 
Republican representation for the city of Paris, including 
Robespierre, Danton, and Marat. "The Convention was 
elected, the Republic proclaimed, the king executed, and the 
Terror established on the mandate of about six per cent of 
the electors of France." ' Despite the efforts of the extremist 
faction, the Mountain controlled only about fifty members; 
the Girondins numbered about one hundred twenty; while 
the majority were not identified with either of the first-named 
radical parties. 

The Mountain proved to be more skilful politicians and more 
vigorous in action than the Girondins. With the help of the 
Paris mob they forced through the execution of Louis Capet, 
ex-king of France, on the twenty-first day of January 1793. 
Owing to the downfall of the ministry, a Committee of Gen- 
eral Defense was established, which failed to develop any 
executive strength. Defeat on the frontier, and a formidable 
civil war in the Vendee, showed the necessity for an efficient 
executive, and on April 6 the Committee of Public Safety 
was established with almost absolute powers. The Mountain 
continued to increase its power over the Convention, largely 
* Cambridge Modern History. 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EDUCATION 25 

through the murderous support of the mob. On June 2 the 
convention voted the suspension of twenty Girondin deputies 
under the guns of the populace. A second Committee of 
Public Safety, appointed July 10, was completely under the 
domination of Robespierre. With few changes of personnel 
this committee was the guiding force of the Revolution until 
July 27, 1794. This is the period known as the "Terror," 
"an era of blind and indiscriminate violence," but at the same 
time of great executive and military efficiency. The Commit- 
tee of Public Safety put down revolts within France with 
savage ferocity and defeated the enemy coalition on her 
borders. 

Education Proposals in the Convention. — The attitude 
of the Convention on educational affairs parallels closely the 
variations in control between the more moderate and the more 
radical elements. Early in its sitting it ordered reprinted the 
report of Condorcet and gave favorable attention to some 
of the provisions of a bill introduced by Lanthenas, which 
followed closely the ideas of Condorcet. In a bill offered by 
Lakanal on the twenty-sixth of June 1793, in the name of 
the Committee on Public Instruction, a primary school was 
proposed for every one thousand inhabitants which was to 
be controlled partly by a local committee and partly by a 
central administration acting under the authority of the legis- 
lative body. A very full curriculum was proposed, aiming at 
physical, intellectual, moral, and vocational training. This 
bill was defeated through the influence of the Mountain, and 
another, representing the extreme state control in matters 
of education, was discussed by the Convention. This bill, 
which had been found among the posthumous papers of 
Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau, was supported by Robespierre. 
It recognized as the most pressing educational need of France 
at this time the making over of the people, with the least 
possible delay, into the image of extreme republicanism. ^ 
The remainder of habit, tradition, and sentiment which 
held over from other less enlightened days was to be elimi- 
nated through the complete re-formation of the minds of 



26 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

the younger generation by means of a system which closely 
resembled that which Lycurgus in ancient times had proposed 
for Sparta. 

The Bill to Create "National" Schools.— The Bill pro- 
vided that all children were to be reared at public expense in 
National Schools. Parents were to be given no choice in regard 
to sending their children to these schools, which were boarding 
establishments in which all were to receive the same food, the 
same clothing, the same instruction, the same care. The 
object of the instruction was to be "to strengthen the bodies 
of the children and to develop them through gymnastic exer- 
cises, to accustom them to hard work, to harden them against 
every kind of fatigue, to bend them to the yoke of a salutary 
discipline, to form their minds and hearts by means of suit- 
able lessons, and to give them that information which is 
necessary to every citizen whatever may be his calling in 
life." Only those children who had exhibited special talents 
and abilities in the National Schools were to be allowed to 
advance to higher education; the rest were to be put to work 
at the various trades or agriculture. The intellectual parts of 
the school experience were to be as follows: "The boys shall 
learn to read, write, and count, and they shall be given ele- 
mentary instruction in mensuration and surveying. Their 
memories shall be cultivated and developed; they shall be 
made to learn by heart some patriotic songs and the story 
of some of the most striking events in the history of free 
peoples and of the French Revolution. They shall also re- 
ceive some instruction concerning the constitution of their 
land, general ethics, and rural and household economy. 

"The girls shall learn to read, write, and count. Their 
memories shall be cultivated through the study of patriotic 
songs and some incidents of history designed to develop the 
virtues of their sex. They shall receive instruction in ethics 
and in rural and household economy." 

The major part of each day was to be employed by the 
children in working with their hands. The boys were to work 
at repairing roads, at trades, and at farming. The girls were 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EDUCATION 27 

to practise spinning, sewing, and laundering. As no domestic 
servants were to be employed in the National Schools, the 
daily domestic duties were to be performed by the children. 
The hours of recreation were to be given up to gymnastic 
exercises, with military training for the boys. Article 19 of 
the Bill provided: "The children shall receive impartially and 
uniformly, each according to his age, wholesome and frugal 
nourishment and comfortable but coarse garments, and shall 
lie on hard beds, so that whatever calling they may embrace 
and in whatever circumstances they may find th'^mselves dur- 
ing the course of their lives, they shall bring to them the 
habit of being able to do without comforts and luxuries and 
a contempt for artificial wants." 

Even though the bill of Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau, spon- 
sored by Robespierre, received considerable support, it was 
referred to a committee. The final action on the modified 
bill as reported out of committee was simply to establish a 
system of National Schools, while it allowed parents to keep 
their children at home and send them to day schools which 
were to be set up for that purpose. 

Legislation regarding Language Instruction. — There 
were many different French dialects spoken in the France of 
the Revolution period, and a number of foreign tongues were 
used on French soil as the language of entire regions, so that 
it was frequently impossible for the citizens of many sections 
to understand the language of citizens of other sections and 
equally impossible for them to read and understand the new 
legislation that was producing so many changes in France. 
It is easily seen that the possession of a uniform and generally 
understood language was of first rate importance for the de- 
velopment of a unified national consciousness, and that the 
presence of numerous dialects which hindered the free circu- 
lation of republican ideas should with justice have been recog- 
nized as a great hindrance to national unity and social prog- 
ress. Accordingly, great stress was laid in the laws of the 
Revolution period upon the teaching of the French language 
in the schools. A law of January 24, 1794, provided for the 



2 8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

appointment of teachers of the French language in each rural 
commune of several departments in which the low-Breton dia- 
lect and foreign languages were in common or practically 
exclusive use. It was to be the duty of these instructors to 
teach the youth of both sexes the French language and the 
Declaration of the Rights of Man. On every "tenth day" 
they were to give public lectures in which they were to trans- 
late the laws of the Republic. 

Radical Distrust of Higher Education. — The extreme 
radicals of the Terror were interested primarily in elementary 
education. Science, literature, and philosophy were suspect 
along with wealth. Higher education was thought to perpetu- 
ate inequality and was therefore looked upon coldly. De- 
mands were made that no colleges should be allowed to exist 
and that no one should hold an appointment as professor for 
life. "It is not necessary to revive the aristocracy of learned 
men and philosophers when we wish a democracy of sanscu- 
lottes; it is not necessary to give the town the advantage over 
the country; when we have a civil code favoring the common 
people we shall have no need of attorneys, advocates, and 
learned men." 

The Overthrow of the Mountain. — The violence which 
Robespierre had used to gain and hold power was in turn 
directed against himself and his supporters in the "Thermi- 
dorian" uprising which took place July 27, 1794. Robespierre 
and ninety-five of his associates were sent to the scaffold 
by the Moderates acting in cooperation with the Anti- 
Robespierrist Radicals. In the reaction which followed, the 
power of the Committee of Public Safety was greatly reduced, 
the licenses given to clubs and societies were withdrawn, the 
powers of Revolutionary Committees were either curtailed or 
suppressed, and the revolutionary municipal government of 
Paris, the Commune, was abolished. A decided shift back to 
moderate political principles occurred in the Convention, and 
this was only in accord with the general feeling of the nation 
as a whole. This reaction is well shown in the Constitution 
of 1795, which made the franchise dependent upon the pay- 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EDUCATION 29 

ment of taxes and established a real-property qualification for 
holding all offices except legislative. The Declaration of the 
Rights of Man was retained as the guarantee of personal liber- 
ties, and citizens were given the right to establish and main- 
tain private schools. A high degree of centralized control 
over local affairs continued the French tradition of centraliza- 
tion which had been interrupted by the provisions of the Con- 
stitution of 1 79 1. 

Conservatism of the Final Education Law. — If the 
French Revolution concluded, as it began, with the recognition 
of the full political rights of the upper and middle classes and 
the denial of participation in political life to the laboring 
classes of the population, the course of educational policy fol- 
lowed closely the political. There is a great contrast between 
the bill of Condorcet, even that of Talleyrand, and the Law 
of Daunou (October 24, 1795) which was the concluding and 
effective educational enactment of the Revolution, regarding 
public education. The latter did not show the fine democratic 
enthusiasm of the earlier bills. Compared with them, it al- 
most altogether neglected the matter of primary education, 
while it made relatively generous provision for secondary and 
higher education. 

Daunou's Law. — Daunou's Law proposed the establish- 
ment of one or more primary schools in every canton — which 
meant, in effect, that the more considerable centers of popu- 
lation were to be compelled to set up primary schools and that 
no provision was made for schools in the villages and the open 
country. The curriculum was to consist of reading, writing, 
arithmetic, and th^ "elements of Republican ethics." Each 
teacher was to be furnished with a house, which was to do 
double duty as schoolroom and dwelling. There was to be 
attached to the house a garden or, in default of such pro- 
vision, an annual sum of money was to be allowed. The re- 
maining support of the teacher was to be derived from school 
fees paid by the pupils. A reminder of the principle of free 
primary instruction which was included in the earlier bills of 
the Revolution is found in the provision of the Law that by 



30 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

reason of poverty one-fourth of the pupils of each school 
might be relieved of payment of the school fee. The imme- 
diate supervision of the primary schools was to be in the 
hands of the municipal government, while education commit- 
tees were to examine and choose the teachers and mediate in 
administration between the municipalities and the depart- 
mental administration. No connection whatever between the 
educational functions of the departmental administration and 
the central government was provided for. 

The Law called for the establishment of secondary schools, 
under the name of Central Schools, in each department, with 
the privilege given to communes of erecting similar schools out 
of their own resources. The Central Schools were to comprise 
three sections or grades and the subject matter of instruction 
was decidedly modern. The attention to be given to the 
ancient languages was minimized, while natural science, mod- 
ern languages, history, mathematics, drawing, literature, and 
law constituted the greater part of the curriculum. The pro- 
fessors were to be chosen by an education committee, subject 
to the approval of the departmental administration. They 
were to be paid annual salaries by the department, with addi- 
tions from pupils' fees. For the Central Schools also we find 
the provision made that one-fourth of the pupils might be 
excused from payment of tuition fees by reason of poverty. 

The Law also provided for Special Schools for the study 
of astronomy, science, medicine, rural economics, the fine 
arts, and other subjects. At the apex of the educational sys- 
tem was placed a National Institute of Arts and Sciences, the 
function of which was to promote learning through scientific 
research, publication, and correspondence with learned socie- 
ties of foreign lands. 

Small Results of Daunou's Law. — While the Law of 1795 
had numerous practical defects, its failure was due largely to 
the general inefficiency of the Directory.government. Certainly 
no appreciable improvement in the condition of primary edu- 
cation resulted from it. The destitution of the teachers and 
the lack of schools are indicated in the official reports of the 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EDUCATION 31 

pericMd. One such report made in the last years of the Direc- 
tory government informs us that the establishment of primary 
schools had been almost everywhere without success. The 
reasons given for their failure were the choice of inferior and 
unworthy teachers, and the lack of any assured means of 
support for teachers. A second report says that the primary 
schools were almost everywhere deserted. 

The administration of the part of the Law dealing with 
secondary schools was somewhat more fruitful of results than 
was the case with the primary schools. "To set up a great 
establishment of secondary instruction in each department, 
including the annexed territories, would not have been, even 
in ordinary times, a small matter; in 1795, with the Coalition 
to contend with, eight hundred thousand men at the frontiers, 
and a depreciated paper currency, there were great chances 
that that vast operation would fail." Nevertheless, within 
about two years, ninety-seven Central Schools were established 
and in working order at an annual cost to the State of two and 
a half million francs. But whether owing to the unpopularity 
of the radically new curriculum, parental distrust of irreligious 
schools, the lack of competent teachers, the absence of effec- 
tive supervision, or the general slackness of the government 
and the insecurity of the times, the Central Schools, drawing 
only small numbers of pupils, did not achieve any significant 
success against the opposition of the private schools allowed 
by the Constitution of 1795. 

Schools Established by the Convention. — During the 
year 1794 were founded the Polytechnic School, the School of 
Mars, the Conservatory of Arts and Trades, and the Normal 
School. According to the plan of Lakanal, who stood spon- 
sor for the Normal School, it was to be established at Paris. 
The most famous scientists and contemporary men of letters 
were to be secured for its professors. Pupil-teachers were to 
be sent to the Normal School from all over France and, having 
been imbued with good methods of teaching, were to return to 
their homes and in turn open training-schools for teachers. 
The plan was actually put into execution, but with little sue- 



32 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

cess. The school had only an ephemeral existence of four 
months. It was later re-established by Napoleon on more 
durable foundations. 



ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical Background. — West, Modern History; Robin- 
son, History of Western Europe; Hayes, A Political and Social History 
of Modern Europe, I; Mathews, The French Revolution. 

Education Source Material. — The best collection of source ma- 
terial for the period covered in this chapter is Greard, La legislation de 
Vinstruction printaire en France, I. A more complete treatment of 
Condorcet's educational program is given in Condorcet, Rapport et 
projet de dccret sur V organisation generate de Vinstruction publique, 
edited by Compayre. 

Secondary Accounts. — Compayre, History of Pedagogy; Cubber- 
ley, The History of Education; Compayre, Doctrines de I'education en 
France, II; Duruy, Vinstruction publique et la revolution; Simon, 
L'instruction poptdaire en France. 



CHAPTER III 

NAPOLEON AND THE IMPERIAL FRENCH 
UNIVERSITY 

French Government under Napoleon. — The rule of 
Napoleon falls into two periods: the Consulate (1799-1804) 
and the Empire (1804-1815). For our purpose, however, it 
is unnecessary to make definite distinctions between the two 
periods, since the political changes as well as the educational 
developments of the Napoleonic regime are but natural steps 
in the evolution of a thinly veiled absolutism. Even under 
the Consulate, the constitutional forms, while ostensibly al- 
lowing some degree of representation to the people, actually 
concentrated all the significant powers of government in the 
hands of the first consul. Napoleon Bonaparte. With increas- 
ing success and popularity the language and forms of absolute 
kingship or empire took the place of the earlier evasions of the 
fact and the government of Napoleon acknowledged itself in 
name what it really was — a thoroughly despotic one-man affair. 

From one point of view the regime of Napoleon can be con- 
sidered as the continuation and the consolidation of the social 
reforms of the Revolution. The numerous inequalities and 
injustices. which had been overthrown at the outset of the Revo- 
lution were not revived under him, and the organization of 
law, governmental machinery, courts, and economic institu- 
tions which took place under his strong leadership over a period 
of almost twenty years made it impossible that France should 
ever lose the impress of the Revolution. France was given 
during that time a model code of law, a strong internal admin- 
istration in every department of the government, and a sound 
financial system. 

From another point of view. Napoleon's rule may be con- 
sidered to have been a complete contravention of the prin- 

33 



34 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

ciples of political freedom and of participation in the business 
of government by the citizens at large. His rule was as auto- 
y cratic and absolute as that of Louis XIV had been, even though 
it observed all the forms of political freedom and recognized 
the body of voters as the source of political power. If the 
"equality" which the Revolution proclaimed was, on the whole, 
faithfully preserved by Napoleon, the "liberty" which it 
inaugurated was as completely subverted. The social group 
which Napoleon recognized as possessing the balance of power 
was the group which had profited most in political privileges 
by the Revolution, namely, the bourgeoisie. But the bour- 
geoisie were at that time more interested in strong govern- 
ment and a sound financial system than in any principle of 
political participation. Napoleon's general policy was directed 
largely to securing the loyalty of this group, and it may be 
said that his educational interest was almost entirely related 
to the schools by which that group would profit. 

Napoleon's Educational Policies. — The educational de- 
velopments under Napoleon bear a close relationship to his 
general political and administrative policies. He was, on the 
whole, indifferent to the education of the masses. In the first 
important education law of his regime, that of May i, 1802, 
the status of primary schools was but slightly changed and 
not at all improved. More important, however, for the im- 
provement of primary education than any education law passed 
during Napoleon's rule, was the Concordat agreed upon in 
1 80 1 between Napoleon and the Pope. According to its ar- 
ticles, the Catholic Church was again legally recognized in 
France and supported out of public funds. The teaching privi- 
leges which the Church had enjoyed prior to the Revolution ^ 
were, in general, restored, with the important qualification 
that they be exercised only under authorization by the gov- 
ernment. Such improvements as took place in the condition of 
primary education under Napoleon were largely owing to the 
activities of the Brethren of the Christian Schools and other 

'All teaching congregations in France were suppressed by act of the 
Legislative Assembly, August i8, 17Q2. 



NAPOLEON AND THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY 35 

teaching congregations. Napoleon himself frequently lauded 
the work of the Brethren of the Christian Schools, and he is 
quoted as having been of the opinion that if they had not 
been under the control of a foreign head, it would be the best 
solution of the problem of primary education to turn it over 
to them.^ 

His Belief in National Education. — In 1805 Napoleon 
wrote: ^"Of all political questions, that [of education] is per- 
haps the most important. There cannot be a firmly estab- 
lished political state unless there is a teaching body with 
definitely recognized principles. If the child is not taught from 
infancy that he ought to be a republican or a monarchist, a 
Catholic or a free-thinker, the state will not constitute a na- 
tion; it will rest on uncertain and shifting foundations; and 
it will be constantly exposed to disorder and change." /I^-T 
poleon saw that the thing that mainly mattered in government 
was, after all, the development of a common culture, common 
convictions, and common ideals. /And since the part of" the 
population which at that time mattered most politically — in- 
deed, the only part that mattered at all — was the bourgeoisie 
and the upper classes. Napoleon attempted to realize his ideal 
of a national education through the schools which educated the 
children of those classes, namely, the secondary schools, and 
through the higher institutions which trained the teachers for 
the secondary schools. 

Extending State Control over Private Schools. — For the 
first three years of the Consulate, the Central Schools of the 
Law of 1795 were continued, but they were far from able to 
serve Napoleon's purpose as they existed. They were too 
few in number, too poorly attended, too loosely supervised, and 
unfavorably affected by the too-successful competition of the 
private secondary schools, which, as has been said above, were 
allowed full rights under the Constitution and which were in- 
dependent of any state supervision. In the law of May i, 
1802, we can see the first step toward the realization of his 
educational ideal. That law provided that secondary educa- 

^ Aulaffl, Napoleon I et le monopole universitcure, p. 48. 



36 NATIONALISIM AND EDUCATION SINCE 17S9 

tion should be carried on under close administrative con- 
trol, in schools established by communes or by private 
parties and in lycees maintained at state cost. The 
main difference between the new secondary school system and 
the one which it supplanted lay in the very significant provi- 
sion that all secondary schools should require government 
authorization. A regulation adopted soon after the law went 
into effect made such authorization annually subject to revo- 
cation. By successive regulations, the central government put 
itself more and more completely in control of the secondary 
schools maintained by the communes, until by the time of the 
foundation of the Imperial University, the government had a 
hand in the selection of their teachers, was determining their 
courses of study, fixing disciplinary measures, and prescribing 
a common costume for the students and uniform religious exer- 
cises. 

The Imperial University. — But even with such extension 
of influence over private and communal secondary schools, 
the logical ideal of state control over education was not at- 
tained. The Emperor would be satisfied with nothing short 
of a thoroughgoing monopoly in education and complete con- 
^^ol over all educational agencies. Accordingly, by the"'law 
o? May 10, 1806, a teaching corporation was established, under 
the name of the Imperial University, which was to have con- 
trol over education in the Empire. The more detailed organi- 
zation of the University took place through a decree of March 
17, 1808, which in effect established a national ministry of 
education. Again, in this latter act, the monopoly of the 
University over education was affirmed in specific terms: 
"No school, no establishment of instruction whatsoever, may 
be set up outside the Imperial University and without the 
authorization of its head." Under the University six grades 
of schools were recognized. Of these the faculties had the 
functions of the modern university and fostered learned studies 
and granted degrees. The lycees, supported by the state, con- 
stituted the highest type of secondary school and had an ex- 
tensive and comprehensive curriculum. The colleges were 



NAPOLEON AND THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY 37 

municipal secondary schools of somewhat lower grade than 
the lycees, while the institutes were private schools of equal 
rank with the colleges. Boarding-schools were private schools 
less advanced in character than the institutes. The lowest 
grade of the educational hierarchy consisted of the petty, or 
primary, schools, in which were taught reading, writing, and 
the beginnings of arithmetic. 

Development of Strong Central Control. — That there 
might be no lack of understanding of the purpose of the 
educational system, the Decree of 1808 specifically stated: 
."AH schools of the Imperial University shall take as the basis 
of their instruction: (a) the precepts of the Catholic religion; 
ib) fidelity to the Emperor and the Imperial Monarchy, which 
is the trustee of the welfare of the people, and to the Na- 
poleonic dynasty, which is the conservator of the unity of 
France and of all the ideas proclaimed by the Constitution; 
and (c) obedience to the statutes of the teaching corporation, 
which have as their object uniformity of instruction and which 
tend to the production for the state of citizens attached to their 
religion, to their country, and to their families." 

In order to insure efficient and responsive administration 
of the educational system, a grand master, to be the personal 
appointee of the Emperor, was given numerous and important 
powers. In his hands was to lie the appointment of all sub- 
ordinate administrative officials and all professors in faculties, 
lycees, and colleges. He was to select the holders of scholar- 
ships and to grant permission to open schools. All disciplin- 
ary measures were to emanate from him, and all admissions 
to the faculties were required to have his sanction. Every 
degree, title, chair, and position in the University was to be 
granted by the grand master. 

Perhaps nothing better shows the clean-cut intention of the 
entire system of education established by Napoleon than the 
terms of the oath prescribed for the grand master. It ran as fol- 
lows: "Sire, I swear to Your Majesty before God to fulfill all 
the duties which are imposed upon me; not to use the authority 
vested in me for any other purpose than the development of 



38 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

citizens attached to their religion, their prince, their country, 
and their parents; to further by ail the means in my power the 
progress of enlightenment, sound learning, and good morals; to 
perpetuate all traditions to the glory of your dynasty, the 
happiness of children, and the peace of parents." 

A university council composed of thirty members was to 
serve as an advisory body to the grand master. Of these, ten, 
hand-picked by the Emperor, were to be appointed for life and 
were to constitute a permanent section of the council. The 
other twenty were to be chosen by the grand master. 

For purposes of administration, France was divided into 
thirty-four (181 2) academies, of which twenty-seven were for 
the original French territories. In each of these was to be 
established a council numbering ten members, who were to be 
chosen from among the public officials of the academy. A 
corps of general inspectors, numbering at least twenty and not 
more than thirty, were appointed by the grand master. Their 
function was to oversee the work being done in the schools and 
to report to the central authority upon it. In each academy 
were one or two inspectors charged with the visitation and in- 
spection of the schools in their districts. They also were 
appointed by the grand master. At the head of each academy 
stood a rector as chief administrative officer under the imme- 
diate orders of the grand master. 

By this same decree of March 17, 1808, provision was 
made for the establishment of a normal boarding-school in 
Paris to accommodate not more than three hundred young men 
chosen by examination from among the students in the lycees. 
Each was to study in the College de France, the Polytechnic 
School, or the Museum of Natural History, according to his in- 
tention of teaching letters or some branch of natural science. 
While in attendance at the Normal School, the students were 
to be supported by the State. 

By a later decree, dated May 10, 1808, there were created 
in each lycee of the Empire, ten full scholarships, twenty 
half-scholarships and twenty three-quarter scholarships. 

Stimulation of Secondary Education. — The results of 



NAPOLEON AND THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY 39 

Napoleon's efforts for the development of secondary educa- 
tion were prodigious. In 1813, 46 lycees were in active opera- 
tion. At the close of the Empire the number of communal 
colleges was about 500. The attendance figures given in 
\'illemain's Report (1843) show that in 1809 there were 
9068 pupils in the lycees and 18,507 in the communal colleges; 
in 1810, 10,926 and 22,171, and in 1811, 10,926 and 24,204 
in the lycees and communal colleges, respectively. Such fig- 
ures indicate that the Emperor had been able to call into 
existence an efficient state system of secondary education. 
But the question remains, did it meet his hopes for a real 
government monopoly over the secondary instruction of the 
youth of France? 

Incomplete Realization of Napoleon's Aim. — In answer 
to that question, the figures for attendance in the private 
secondary schools are highly significant. In 1809, there were 
23,508 pupils in the institutes and boarding-schools; in 1810, 
32,112, and in 181 1, 32,409. It would seem from these figures 
that the parents of France were offering very persistent oppo- 
sition to Napoleon's effort to control the sources of opinion 
and attitude. In vain had he made concessions to the religious 
feelings of parents by introducing a religious school regime — 
they preferred to send their children to schools of their own 
choice where the management could be expected to be in sym- 
pathy with their own religious and political leanings. In the 
year 181 1 and thereafter Napoleon tried, through numerous 
and galling restrictions upon private schools, to extend his 
influence over private education. But the old power was 
slipping. Military defeats and financial problems occupied 
his attention and tied his hands. It is even said that Fon- 
taine, the Grand Master of the University, secretly sympa- 
thized with the Catholic private schoolmasters and failed to 
apply in the spirit intended the restrictive measures passed. 
Our conclusion must be that Napoleon's effort to bind the 
youth of the middle class to himself and his policies, through 
his state system of secondary schools, failed. The traditions 
of the old monarchy and orthodox Catholicism were main- 



40 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

tained in schools paralleling the state schools and drawing 
almost equal numbers of pupils. 

When Napoleon's final defeat occurred in 1815, the educa- 
tional organization which he had developed became, almost 
without change, the servant of the Restoration government. 

The Educational Results of the French Revolution and 
the First Empire. — In looking back over the eventful period 
of French history from 1789 to 181 5, our conclusion must 
be that the development of France, both in the direction of 
national education and in that of democratic education, was 
arrested at midpoint. The Revolution had eliminated many 
age-old abuses and privileges and had established the principle 
of representative government. The Constitution of 1791 had 
given political rights to the tax-paying, property-owning por- 
tion of the Third Estate. The radical developments of the 
Legislative Assembly and the Convention were only temporary, 
and the Constitution of 1795, like that of 1791, placed politi- 
cal power in the hands of the bourgeoisie, leaving without the 
right of suffrage the vast majority composed of the laboring 
and agricultural population. The despotism of Napoleon may 
likewise be regarded as a temporary aberration in the opposite 
extreme from that of the Convention. After Napoleon, again 
came representative constitutional government participated in 
by the upper and middle classes. 

The educational developments of this period, we have seen, 
followed very closely the political. To be sure, Talleyrand's 
plans were more generous in their provision for the education 
of the common people than was the Law of 1795, but he wrote 
under the influence of the early enthusiasm of the Revolution 
for human rights, while Daunou had behind him recollections 
of the Commune and the Terror. Every government from the 
Directory to the 'July Monarchy in 1830, professed interest in 
primary education; but, with the slight exceptions to be noted 
later in connection with the Restoration Monarchy, they did 
nothing for it. Half-hearted support on the part of some local 
officials and the efforts of the religious associations account 



NAPOLEON AND THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY 41 

for all of the meager provision made for public primary edu- 
cation in France until 1833. 

In the field of secondary education, the facts are quite the 
reverse. The Directory established a state secondary school 
system and tolerated private initiative in that field. The suc- 
cess of secondary education during the period of the Directory 
was limited, as was the success of almost everything else which 
that government undertook. But under the Consulate and 
the Empire, secondary education took on new life and pros- 
pered. From the very beginning of the nineteenth century the 
French middle and upper classes possessed the advantage of 
an efficient system of secondary schools. Theoretically, and 
to a small extent practically, there was maintained an open 
competitive field in which talent and ability might win out. 
At least the system provided a high degree of educational 
opportunity for the sons of the politically significant classes. 

In evaluating the nationalistic developments in France dur- 
ing the period covered in this chapter, beginning with the bill 
proposed by Talleyrand before the Constituent Assembly and 
ending with Napoleon's final educational efforts, we see in > 
every important educational document an effort to control the 
outlook and the attitudes of the oncoming generation in the 
interest of national unity. From the first it was recognized 
that in order to have a nation, there had to be developed 
among the people who composed it a common possession of 
knowledge, traditions, habits, loves and hates, and ideals. To 
that end it was seen that schools had to be founded every- 
where, within reach of all the people, and that, in order to 
have a system of schools teaching all the people the materials 
desired, there had to be organized a nation-wide system of 
educational administration. 

In examining the various projects proposed for accomplish- 
ing this work of cultural unification, we have discovered wide 
differences. Condorcet's plan literally included the education 
of everybody and contemplated developing each to his highest 
point of efficiency for service of the common national and 



42 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

human destiny. The plan of Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau was 
intended to Hmit the expression of individual differences and 
the development of social distinctions, but it was even more 
resolute in its intention of creating national solidarity and 
cohesion after the extreme Republican pattern. Finally, the 
laws of 1795 and 1802 and the various decrees establishing 
the Imperial University were equally designed to give a com- 
mon basis of knowledge and political sympathy to the youth 
of the upper and middle classes, who alone were the active 
political constituents of the nation and whose education alone 
was regarded as nationally significant. 

Whether fortunately or unfortunately for France, the di- 
versities of heritage, interest, and purpose among the various 
political and social groups of the state were too great to be 
broken up and melted down into any uniform and smoothly- 
functioning public policy within a single generation. The most 
nearly successful effort of the period under discussion was that 
of Napoleon, but it is hardly probable that, even if he had 
been given time, he could have accomplished the unification 
of French culture in the Imperial mould. Perhaps no great 
country in Europe during the period since the French Revo- 
lution has had so many and so great diversities of political 
and religious faith to be reconciled before a sound and lasting 
basis of national life might be found, as has had France. To 
this condition may be traced many of the nineteenth-century 
developments in French politics and education, of which we 
shall see more in the chapters that follow. 

ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical Background. — West, Modern History; Robin- 
son, History of Western Europe; Hayes, A Political and Social History 
of Modern Europe, I. 

Education Source Material. — Greard, La legislation de I'instruction 
primaire en France, I ; Recueil des lois et decrets sur I'enseignement, 
Paris, 181 2. 

Secondary Accounts. — Compayre, History of Pedagogy; Cubberley, 
Tlie History of Education ; Farrington, French Secondary Education; 
Aulard, Napoleon I et Ic monopole univcrsitaire; Liard, L'enseigne- 
ment supericur en France, II. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE RESTORATION MONARCHY (1815-1830) 
AND EDUCATIONAL CONSERVATISM 

Political and Economic Conditions. — By the Royal Char- 
ter of 1 814, which was confirmed in 181 5, Louis XVIII 
granted a constitutional government and retained the most 
important of the administrative and legal reforms of Napoleon, 
The king was to be advised in his legislative capacity by a 
parliament of two chambers, the members of the lower of 
which were to be elected by all Frenchmen who paid a heavy 
direct tax. The number of men so voting comprised about 
one out of seventy of the male population. Liberty of worship 
and the press was recognized and the Concordat and the 
University of France were carried over from the Imperial re- 
gime — the latter with slight changes in form of administra- 
tion and nomenclature. The period may be characterized 
politically as conservative, with strong liberal opposition 
both within the Chambers and without. 

During the fifteen years of the Restoration Monarchy, 
France made great strides in the adoption of the new in- 
dustrial inventions and the factory system of production. By 
the year 1830 the country had been largely made over in- 
dustrially, and the great number of small peasant proprietors 
resulting from the division of great landed estates during the 
Revolution period had caused to develop a stable and pros- 
perous rural life. 

The government of Louis XVIII made common cause with 
the Church and during the period of the Restoration the 
Church regained in large measure the influence in education 
which it had lost during the Revolution. 

Conservatism in Education. — The Restoration Monarchy 

43 



44 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

continued the neglect of primary education which had char- 
acterized all the conservative governments after the Thermi- 
dorian Reaction of July 1794. The Ordinance of February 
29, 1 81 6, which with but slight change controlled primary 
education during the existence of the Restoration Monarchy, 
carried an appropriation of 50,000 francs for the encourage- 
ment of popular education. This sum amounted on the aver- 
age to about one and a third francs for each commune in the 
nation! In 1829, the appropriation was raised to 100,000 
francs and in 1830, on the eve of the July Revolution, to 
300,000 francs. 

The Ordinance of 181 6 provided cantonal committees to be 
in charge of the primary schools of the canton. The local 
cure and the mayor of the commune were entrusted with the 
special oversight of the communal primary school. In 1824, 
the constitution of the cantonal committees was changed so as 
to give control of the Catholic primary schools to the bishop 
and the clergy, while in 1828 the lay element was again re- 
stored to the cantonal committees and primary education was 
placed under the control of the University of France. 

An effort was made to raise the quality of the primary 
teachers by the provision in the Ordinance of 181 6 of a plan 
for the certification of teachers. The Brethren of the Chris- 
tian Schools, however, refused to be examined for the certifi- 
cate. In 18 18 their contention was allowed and thereafter 
"letters of obedience" were accepted in place of teaching cer- 
tificates gained through examination. 

By t-he time of the revolution of July 1830, 20,000 out' of 
a total of 37,000 communes had some sort of primary school 
or other, and the primary normal schools or schools for the 
training of primary teachers, had increased in number from 
the single normal school bequeathed to the Restoration Mon- 
archy by the Empire, to thirteen. 

Monitorial Instruction in France. — The period between 
181 5 and 1830 was one of great enthusiasm in France for 
the monitorial system, or "instruction mutuelle," as it is 
termed in French. The same period, witnessing the develop- 



BOURBONS AND EDUCATIONAL CONSERVATISM 45 

merit of the factory system, as was stated above, saw develop 
also the need for some institution to care for the little chil- 
dren who had been made motherless through the demands 
of the factories for the services of women. The French 
counterpart of the English infant school has a history ex- 
tending back to the labors of Oberlin in the commune of 
Ban de la Roche in Northwestern France in the latter part 
of the eighteenth century. The work of Pastor Oberlin was 
imitated in Paris by Mme. de Pastoret in 1801. This philan- 
thropic woman established under the name of ''salle d'hospi- 
talite" a school in which children whose parents were kept 
away from home all day long by the demands of labor and 
who had been allowed to run wild were received and taught. 
This first experiment in Paris proved a failure and for some 
years nothing further was done in the way of schools for very 
young children. In 1825 the success of the English infant 
school caused a renewal of interest on the part of Mme. de 
Pastoret in the possibilities of infant education. Under her 
presidency a committee of women was formed and the first 
"salle d'asile," or infant school, on the English model was 
opened in Paris in 1826 under the name ^'salle d'essai." There- 
after the movement developed rapidly until in 1837 ' the "salle 
d'asile" was recognized by the government as a part of the 
system of primary schools. 

ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical Background. — Hayes, A Political and Social 
History of Modern Europe; Hazen, Europe Since i8ij. 

Education Source Material. — Greard, La legislation de ['instruction 
primaire en France, I. 

Secondary Accounts. — Arnold, Popidar Education in France; 
Compayre, History of Pedagogy ; Farrington, French Secondary Schools; 
Greard, Education et instruction; Simon, L'instruction populaire en 
France. 

* Royal Ordinance of December 22, 1837. 




J 



CHAPTER V 



THE UPPER-MIDDLE-CLASS MONARCHY (1830 

TO 1848), AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A 

STATE SYSTEM OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS 

Political and Economic Conditions. — The Restoration 
Monarchy fell because Charles X (1824-1830) attempted to 
modify the government under the Charter so as to make the 
electorate narrower and to increase substantially the impor- 
tance of the kingship. The bourgeoisie, who had practically 
been disfranchised by an ordinance of July 1830, gained the 
support of the laboring classes of Paris, and met the decisive 
issue with the king by overthrowing his government and plac- 
ing Louis Philippe on the throne. The new government sub- 
ordinated the crown to the parliament; but the parliament 
was far from a popular representative body. It consisted of an 
appointive Chamber of Peers and a Chamber of Deputies 
elected by all males who paid direct taxes amounting to two 
hundred francs a year and by the professional classes. Politi- 
cal power during the next eighteen years remained entirely in 
the hands of the upper classes, while the working classes, who 
had supported the July Revolution, remained without repre- 
sentation. Republican revolts, resulting from popular dis- 
satisfaction over the aristocratic nature of the new constitu- 
tion, were vigorously suppressed by the new middle-class 
government, and repressive measures were adopted against 
the republican press. The refusal of any concessions to 
liberal political movements may be regarded as the settled 
policy of the July government as long as it lasted. 

The repressive attitude towards labor organizations which 
dated from the first Revolution, was not changed during the 
reign of Louis Philippe. Labor disturbances were harshly put 

46 



THE JULY MONARCHY AND EDUCATION 47 

down and labor unions continued to be illegal. A child labor 
law was passed in 1841, in recognition of the iniquitous con- 
ditions under which little children labored in the factories; 
but it was not until 1848 that the establishment of state in- 
spection produced any important results from the act of 1841. 

Throughout its course the July Monarchy was a business- 
men's government. Industry was fostered; roads were built 
and canals constructed; the building of railways was encour- 
aged by the state; and a foreign policy of "peace at any price" 
was adopted in order that business might not suffer the dislo- 
cation that would accompany foreign wars. The beginnings of 
the industrial revolution which had taken place under the 
Restoration Monarchy (1815-1830) were expanded and de- 
veloped until by the close of the July Monarchy's regime in 
1848, the reorganization of French industry may be said to 
have been completed. The period was one also of great in- 
crease in rural wealth and in the efficiency of agricultural or- 
ganization and methods. All of these developments were of 
essential importance to improvements in education; for in- 
crease in population, increase of national wealth, and improve- 
ment of transportation facilities, represented the economic 
foundation upon which alone the increased cost of better 
schools could rest. 

Primary Education in 1833: Lorain's Report. — Toward 
the close of the year 1833, M. Guizot, the minister of public 
instruction, sent out a body of four hundred ninety special 
inspectors to gain information concerning the condition of 
primary education in France. In his Report to the King, 
April 1834, he promised to collect and publish the information 
thus gained, but this promise was not carried out until the 
compilation of the various reports of inspectors was made by 
P. Loraip under the title, "A Survey of Primary Instruction 
in France," and published in 1837. The Survey is not to be 
taken without a grain of salt, for it avowedly was made with 
the idea of not allowing the French people to congratulate 
themselves unduly on the state of primary education. It is 
not a statistical study in the modern sense, although the re- 



48 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

port is based upon the actual findings of the inspectors. The 
writer has rather deliberately chosen the weak spots in the 
French system and has limited his study almost entirely to 
the school conditions of the rural communes— and the worst 
of them at that. However, the Survey is interesting and sig- 
nificant if we accept it with the proper reservations. 

M. Lorain's report shows that the country schools were 
seldom housed in buildings that did not serve other public or 
domestic uses at the same time or during the same day. "It 
is a sufficiently rare phenomenon," he says, "to see in the 
lodgings of the teacher a room separate from the classroom 
which is devoted exclusively to domestic duties. It is very 
convenient for the teacher, while hearing some one recite the 
catechism, to pour a pint for the topers or to hammer the soles 
of the shoes which he sells in the neighborhood, to look after 
the preparation of his soup, or to 'sponge' off the stove, the 
wood for which has been furnished by the patrons for another 
purpose. ... So that nothing may be lacking from such un- 
favorable conditions, the classroom is not only his kitchen, but 
it is his bedchamber, his complete domicile. If some member 
of his family, his wife or his daughter, is ill, or some circum- 
stance keeps them in bed a little longer than usual, they are 
free, I fear, modestly to draw the curtain. . . . Why should 
we be astonished at the slovenliness which sometimes reigns 
in the schools when we sometimes see teachers voluntarily 
seeking horse and cattle stables in which to hold their classes 
in the hope of taking advantage of the heat of the beasts which 
are there stabled? . . . Often the school is kept in damp 
barns, in basements, in cellars, where one must crouch to 
enter, and in rooms of unbelievable smallness. . . . The school 

of P is only twelve feet square; in that room were 

crowded together in the dead of winter eighty children! When 
such a mass of children had no means of getting air except 
through a single window the size of a single pane of glass, the 
least disagreeable result which one could expect was that of 
which the teacher gave the pupils a good example, namely, of 
falling into a sound sleep, against which it would be impossible 



THE JULY MONARCHY AND EDUCATION 49 

long to struggle." And so on at length M. Lorain describes the 
inadequate and unsanitary housing of the primary schools in 
rural France. 

The general destitution of schools and the illiteracy of large 
sections of the country were graphically presented. "Not 
only are a great many communes without schools, but it is not 
a rare occurrence to find whole cantons in which the inspector 
has been able to point out only a small number — sometimes a 
single one. In another case, not a single school was discover- 
able in a canton composed of fifteen communes. It is unneces- 
sary to add that in a great many villages it is impossible to 
find a man who knows how to read, write, and reckon with 
figures. When a notary is called into such a community to 
affix the seal on a legal document, he takes care to come with 
two regular witnesses whom he brings from the town, because 
he knows well enough that he will search in vain in those parts 
for French citizens who know how to sign their own names." 
Lorain added that it was often difficult for a commune to find 
a man who could read and write to serve as mayor. "As to 
the municipal councilors, it is the rule in certain districts, 
owing to lack of ability to fulfill the condition of signing their 
names, that they get out of the difficulty of the minutes by use 
of the following formula: 'Have declared that they cannot 
sign, such a one, such a one, etc' . . . There is a certain 
canton in France where you cannot find more than four per- 
sons who understand French." 

As to the attainments of the primary school teachers, Lorain 
said that, while all of them, he believed, knew how to read 
more or less badly, he was very certain that not all of them 
knew how to write. Among those who boasted of that ability, 
there were some who were unable to correct the mistakes of 
their pupils. It was not possible to put the legal system of 
weights and measures into effect, because many of the teachers 
were ignorant of it. 

"The misery of the teachers," continues the Survey, "equals 
their ignorance, and the public contempt of them is often 
merited by their shame." Among the teachers were to be found 



50 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

freed convicts, criminals, usurers, men without arms, men 
suffering from epilepsy. The teacher was often regarded as 
on the same plane with the beggar. As between the herdsman 
and him, the preference was for the herdsman. Often he was 
paid in produce which he had to collect on Sundays with a 
wallet on his back. 

In this general low estimate of the members of the teaching 
"profession," it is of interest to note M. Lorain's estimate of 
the Brethren of the Christian Schools, who had to be assigned 
a distinctive place among French primary teachers. "The 
superiority of their schools, recognized by the almost unani- 
mous opinion of the inspectors, their moral tone, the secret 
discipline that governs them, their peculiar regulations, every- 
thing, in short, down to the oddity of their dress, distinguishes 
them from ordinary teachers." 

Even after making full allowance for the purpose and atti- 
tude of Lorain in preparing his report, it is obvious that there 
was a great amount of educational destitution in France in 
1833 and that in the more backward districts conditions were 
almost unbelievably bad. To be sure, the more populous places 
had made considerable progress in primary education, espe- 
cially through the use of the monitorial organization, but 
there was a national situation in primary education that re- 
quired effective measures. 

The July Monarchy and Primary Education. — The July 
Monarchy may appear to be inconsistent with its generally 
restrictive political policies in the fact that it showed itself a 
consistent friend of popular education. The Charter con- 
tained a provision for the establishment as soon as possible 
of a system of public instruction. It also guaranteed liberty 
of teaching. As a preliminary step to fulfilling the promise of 
the Charter, Victor Cousin was sent to Germany by the govern- 
ment to examine into and report upon the system of education 
in operation in the various German states. He made his 
report in 1831. German practices considerably influenced the 
French in the plan of public education which they adopted. 
Even before the passage of the Law of 1833, which organized 



THE JULY MONARCHY AND EDUCATION 51 

primary education, the government had interested itself in 
the foundation of new primary normal schools and in the 
strengthening of those which it had received from the Restora- 
tion Monarchy. By the time of the passage of the Law of 
1833, the July Government had established thirty new primary 
normal schools, modelled closely after those existing in 
Prussia. 

Motives for Fostering Popular Education. — The ap- 
parent inconsistency of the July Monarchy in relation to 
popular education is not so real when we penetrate more 
deeply into its motives. The movement for a better primary 
school system was in the direction of democracy, to be- sure, 
even as all agencies that tend to spread intelligence and en- 
lightenment among the people make it more and more inev- 
itable that they should ultimately be heard in the making of 
laws and the adoption of national policies. It is not to be 
forgotten, however, that the controlling political elements in 
the Government of July did not deliberately plan an education 
that would make for political revolution, or even evolution. 
The system of primary education which they established was 
intended to serve the needs of an inferior social and political 
class, and they set up this system as much in the spirit of 
self-protection as in the spirit of benevolence, humanitarian- 
ism, and democracy. Lorain in his Survey of Primary Edu- 
cation referred to above, wrote as follows: "It is the part 
of a far-seeing and enlightened government to hasten that 
time when public instruction will have won its suit against 
the general apathy of the classes which ought to embrace 
it as a benefit, and even to anticipate it. If society had 
not made the gift of education to the people in order to 
ease their lot, to improve their customs, and to cultivate their 
morals, it would have had to do so for its own safety. It is 
not difficult to see that a nation, jealous of the new rights born 
of the July Revolution, would perform a perilous experiment 
if it should abandon the common people to their accustomed 
ignorance. They would then have in their hands for the 
future either a deadly weapon or a useful instrument accord- 



52 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

ing as they would have learned or been ignorant of the right 
use of their new powers. And not to limit the national dangers 
to the field of politics, by what means could the shock com- 
municated to all sound beliefs by the bold speecli of false doc- 
trines and by the disturbances of conscience which reach down 
to the heart of the most peaceable classes, — by what means 
could that shock be absorbed and the increasing prevalence of 
corrupt and loose living be counteracted, except by a new 
education which would be less impotent than the former igno- 
rance to preserve in the minds of the people conservative ideas 
of order and of social organization? Certainly if safety is 
any concern of ours, we must praise the Government for hav- 
ing tried to secure it through public education." ^ 

Social Functions of the Higher Primary Schools. — The 
same rather moderate attitude toward the education of the 
common people which was expressed by M. Lorain is ex- 
hibited from another aspect by M. Guizot, Minister Secretary 
of State for Public Instruction, in his speech made in presenta- 
tion of the Law of 1833, before the Chamber of Deputies. 
Guizot had just informed the Deputies that the bill presented 
by the Government contained provision for two grades of 
primary education, higher and lower. The maintenance of 
higher primary schools was to be made compulsory for towns 
of more than six thousand inhabitants and all chief towns of 
departments. In supporting the proposed extension of pri- 
mary education, Guizot went rather fundamentally into the 
meaning of the three grades of instruction, elementary primary, 
higher primary, and secondary. His presentation of the case is 
so concise and so lucid that it seems profitable to quote from it 
directly: 

"We have divided primary instruction into two grades, ele- 
mentary primary instruction and higher primary instruction. 
The first grade is, so to speak, a minimum of primary in- 
struction, the limit below which we ought not to go, the strict 
debt of the country to its children. That grade of instruction 
ought to be common to the open country and the town; it 

'P. Lorain, Tableau de I'instructioK primaire en France, pp. lo-ii. 



THE JULY MONARCHY AND EDUCATION 53 

should be found in the most humble village as well as in the 
largest city, wherever there is a human creature in the land 
of France. You will recognize it to be sufficient for its pur- 
pose as set forth in the bill. By instruction in reading, writ- 
ing, and arithmetic, it provides for the most essential needs of 
existence; by instruction in the legal system of weights and 
measures and in the French language it everywhere implants, 
increases, and spreads the spirit and the unity of French na- 
tionalism; and, finally, through moral and religious instruc- 
tion, it provides for another kind of need quite as real as the 
former, which Providence has placed in the hearts of the poor 
as well as the prosperous, for the dignity of human life and 
the safety of society. 

"That first grade of instruction is sufficiently extensive to 
make a man of him who receives it, and at the same time suffi- 
ciently limited so that it may everywhere be realized. But 
between that grade of school and the secondary instruction 
given either in the institutes and private boarding-schools or 
in the state colleges, there is a wide gap, and there is no edu- 
cational institution to fill that gap. It makes necessary the 
choice between remaining satisfied within the narrow limits 
of elementary schooling and aspiring to a secondary education, 
— that is to say, to an extremely expensive classical and scien- 
tific education. 

"From that condition it results that a very numerous part 
of the nation, who neither enjoy the advantages of great wealth 
nor suffer the inconveniences of poverty, are wholly lacking in 
the knowledge and in the intellectual and moral cultivation 
which are appropriate to their station in life. It is absolutely 
necessary, gentlemen, to fill up that gap; it is necessary to 
give so considerable a part of our fellow-citizens an oppor- 
tunity of attaining a certain level of intellectual development 
without imposing upon them the necessity of resorting to 
secondary instruction, which is so expensive, and (I do not fear 
to express myself plainly in the presence of statesmen who 
understand my thought) at the same time so dangerous. 
In short, for some few happily talented individuals whom scien- 



54 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

tific and classical instruction develops and usefully raises above 
the station of life in which they were born, how many medi- 
ocre persons there are who, in following such advanced studies, 
develop tastes and habits that are incompatible with the modest 
circumstances to which they will of necessity return; and, once 
departed from their natural sphere, not knowing what path in 
life to follow, they become, almost without exception, ungrate- 
ful, unhappy, and discontented beings, burdensome to them- 
selves and to others! 

"We believe that we are performing a real service to the 
country in establishing a higher grade of primary instruction, 
which, without entering upon classical and scientific instruc- 
tion, properly so called, gives, nevertheless, to a numerous part 
of the population a slightly higher degree of culture than has 
been provided in the primary school hitherto. . . . We have 
provided and organized a higher grade of primary instruction 
which adds to that knowledge indispensable to all men, the 
knowledge which is useful to a great many: the elements of 
practical geometry, which constitute the preparation for every 
industrial calling; those notions of physics and natural his- 
tory which make us familiar with the outstanding phenomena 
of nature and are so rich in healthy recreations of every kind; 
the elements of music or, at least, of singing, which gives the 
spirit a true inward cultivation; geography, which informs us 
about the various parts of the earth upon which we dwell; 
history, by means of which we cease to be strangers to the 
life and destiny of our species— and particularly the history 
of our own land, which makes us one with her; to say nothing 
of this or the other modern language, which, according to 
the province in which we live, may be indispensable for us, 
or at least of very great value." 

The Primary Education Law of 1833 

If we have been compelled to interpret to a certain extent the 
attitude of the July Government on the matter of public educa- 
tion, we need have no reservations in regard to the vigor with 



THE JULY MONARCHY AND EDUCATION 55 

which that same Government threw itself into the carrying out 
of its educational plans. We have already noted the activity of 
the Government in establishing primary normal schools and 
called attention to its desire to profit by the experience of the 
German states. Not less indicative of the new interest in pri- 
mary education was the increase of the state appropriation for 
the common schools from the 300,000 francs given in the last 
year of the Restoration Monarchy to an annual appropriation 
of one million francs iri 1831 and 1832. The greatest achieve- 
ment of the July Monarchy, however, consisted in the organ- 
ization of a national system of primary instruction by the 
law of June 28, 1833. 

The Law of 1833 defined two grades of primary instruction, 
namely, elementary and higher. The subjects of instruction 
in the elementary primary school were religion and morals, 
reading, writing, the elements of the French language and of 
arithmetic, and the legal system of weights and measures. The 
higher primary schools offered, in addition, instruction in the 
elements of geometry and its practical applications, especially 
in linear design and surveying, also in elementary physical 
and biological science as applied to life, in singing, and in ele- 
mentary history and geography, especially the history and the 
geography of France. Where desirable, instruction was to be 
given in a modern language, and still other extensions of the 
curriculum might have place. According to the terms of the 
law, every commune was compelled to maintain an elementary 
primary school, and every department, a primary normal 
school. For purposes of economy, permission might be granted 
to communes to combine in the support of the primary school 
and to departments to combine in support of the normal. As 
has been said above, the higher primary schools were to be 
established in the chief town of each department and in all 
cities with over 6000 inhabitants. 

The Status of Private Primary Schools. — According to 
the express guarantee of the Charter, private primary schools 
were authorized on condition that the person desiring to con- 
duct such a school should be eighteen years of age and should 



56 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

have presented to the mayor of the commune in which he 
wished to open a school, two certificates. The one was a 
teaching certificate received as a result of. official examination; 
the other a certificate of good moral character signed by the 
mayor of the commune, or by the mayors of the communet, 
in which he had resided during the preceding three years. Any 
private teacher might, in cases of misconduct or immorality, 
be called before the civil tribunal of the arrondissement on 
complaint of its educational committee and on conviction be 
forbidden further practice of his calling. 

The Treatment of the Religious Difficulty. — An effort 
was made in this law to mediate in regard to the religious diffi- 
culty. The right that was given to maintain private schools 
was a very real concession to the Church, as most of the private 
schools were maintained by religious bodies. It was even 
allowed to the Minister of Public Instruction to authorize the 
acceptance of a Church school as the school of the commune 
in case local conditions permitted, but it was also definitely 
stated in the law that no child should be compelled to partici- 
pate in any religious instruction of which his parents did not 
approve. The state retained the right of inspecting all pri- 
vate schools, while at the same tim.e it gave the religious bodies 
places on the local committees of supervision. The privilege 
which members of the teaching congregations had Ci.jOyed 
under the Restoration Government of presenting their "letters 
of obedience" in place of certificates was abrogated, and by 
the terms of the new law they were compelled to take the offi- 
cial examination to prove their proficiency in the school 
subjects. 

Salaries and School Fees. — The law provided a fixed 
minimum annual salary of two hundred francs for each teacher 
in an elementary, and of four hundred francs in a higher, pri- 
mary school. In addition the teacher was to be furnished 
with a house that might serve at the same time as a school and 
a dwelling, and he was to receive a monthly school fee for 
each pupil. The fees were to be collected by the regular 
authorities as other taxes were collected. Alj children, however, 



THE JULY MONARCHY AND EDUCATION 57 

who were designated by the municipal council as unable to pay 
the school fee were to be admitted free. A number of free 
places were also to be maintained in the higher primary schools, 
to be awarded to deserving poor on a competitive basis. 

The Financial Support of Primary Education. — The 
financial difficulties encountered in France in 1833 were the 
same as those encountered in any state which attempts to lift 
all sections at the same time to higher standards of instruc- 
tion at greater cost. The burdens imposed by the new law 
were certain to rest much more heavily on the poorer com- 
munes than on the more wealthy. It was good statesmanship 
that caused France so early in her experience with public 
education to distribute the costs of primary education among 
the commune, the department, and the state. The commune 
was expected to tax itself for educational purposes, if neces- 
sary, to the amount of three centimes on the franc. In case 
its resources were not thus made sufficient to meet the costs 
of primary education, the department in which the commune 
was situated was expected to tax itself if necessary to the 
amount of two centimes on the franc in order to make up 
the deficiency. In the event that the combined efforts of com- 
mune and department should not suffice, the balance was to 
be contributed by the state at large. Thus, at a stroke, the 
Law of 1833 established a wise and effective means of dis- 
tributing the costs of a nation-wide, uniform standard of pri- 
mary education over the nation as a whole. The plan stimu- 
lated, even compelled, local initiative, but at the same time 
it relieved pressure put upon the poorer communes out of the 
superior resources of those better able to pay. 

Local Authorities according to the Law. — Compared 
with later developments, the administration of primary educa- 
tion under the Law of 1833 was extremely simple. There was 
to be in each commune a local committee of supervision com- 
posed of the mayor, the cure or pastor, and one or more resi- 
dent notables. Where there was a religious division in the 
commune each cult was to be represented on the local com- 
mittee. 



58 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

In each arrondissement, which corresponds roughly to the 
congressional district in the United States, there was to be a 
committee of the arrondissement, or in case the minister of edu- 
cation thought it desirable, several such, each with jurisdiction 
over certain cantons designated by him. It was to be composed 
of the senior mayor among the mayors of chief towns in the dis- 
trict, the senior cure of the district, the senior justice of the 
peace of the district, a minister of each of the legally recognized 
religious cults of the district, a representative of secondary edu- 
cation, one of primary education, three members of the coun- 
cil of the arrondissement or three resident notables designated 
by that council, and those members of the general council 
of the department who had their actual domicile in the dis- 
trict. The committee was presided over by the sub-prefect 
and the royal prosecuting attorney was a member ex officio. 
This committee of the arrondissement was the highest council 
for primary education and mediated directly between the local 
school committees and the national ministry of education. 
The business of inspection was placed in the hands of this 
committee, which might delegate the function to some repre- 
sentative. It also made an annual report on the state of the 
primary schools under its jurisdiction, and proposed any de- 
sirable changes in the system. It named the teachers of the 
primary schools of the communes and gave them the oath 
prescribed for every teacher. The committee of the arrondisse- 
ment was also empowered to recommend the dissolution of 
any local committee and its replacement by a special commit- 
tee appointed by the minister of education. 

The Powers of the Central Authority. — This last named 
function of the committee of the arrondissement leads us very 
naturally to consider the hold which the state maintained upon 
primary education. It was quite correctly foreseen that the 
new law would encounter considerable local opposition. The 
law met this probable difficulty by a provision that, in case a 
commune refused to organize itself for educational purposes 
in accordance with the law or in case a local committee should 
prove obstructive, the minister of public instruction might 



THE JULY MONARCHY AND EDUCATION 59 

appoint a committee that would carry out the law. The state 
made itself directly responsible for the standards of the teach- 
ing certificate when it made the examining committees ap- 
pointive by the minister of public instruction. Finally, the 
state made each teacher directly responsible to the national 
government by allowing the last stage of his appointment to 
rest in the hands of the minister of public instruction and 
requiring him to take the following oath: "I swear fidelity to 
the King of the French people and obedience to the Constitu- 
tional Charter and the laws of the nation." 

Compared with the loose administration, even absence of an 
administrative system, which had obtained under the Restora- 
tion Monarchy, the Law of 1833 went far toward reducing to 
order and efficiency the French system of primary education. 
It is easily seen, however, that there was not provided an 
adequate system of local inspection. The arrondissement was 
too large an area for the committee of the arrondissement to be 
able to maintain close touch with local school conditions, with- 
out the aid of inspectors. It is seen, also, that the annual re- 
port of the committee of the arrondissement to the minister of 
education would hardly be adequate as a means of keeping that 
official informed concerning the educational needs of the coun- 
try at large or of giving him assistance in the more technical or 
professional side of school affairs. This gap was to a consider- 
able extent filled by the appointment, according to a Royal 
Ordinance of February 26, 1835, of an inspector for primary 
education, to be appointed by the minister of public instruction. 
The state inspectorial staff was successively increased until in 
1847 two inspectors general and 153 inspectors and sub-in- 
spectors had been appointed. 

Improvement in Primary Education under the July 
Monarchy. — The activity of the state in the multiplication of 
normal schools and the efficient administration of the Law of 
1833 were destined to bring about very influential develop- 
ments in primary education before the fall of the July Mon- 
archy in 1848. In 1851 there were only 2500 communes that 
were w^ithout primary schools, out of a total of 37,000. In 



6o NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

all, there were at that time about 61,000 primary schools of all 
kinds distributed over France, giving instruction to more than 
3,500,000 children of both sexes. The founding of new nor- 
mal schools in accordance with the requirement of the Law 
of 1833 had proceeded rapidly, and in 1838 there were al- 
ready in active operation seventy-six such schools with a 
total attendance of more than 2500 students. The appropria- 
tion by the state for primary education had much more than 
doubled between 1832 and 1847. Within about the same 
period the costs of primary education for the communes had 
increased a third and the contributions of the departments 
by more than a half. The success of the higher primary 
schools was not great and we shall see later that that institu- 
tion, as such, was not mentioned in the Law of 1850. The 
reasons given for this failure of the higher primary schools to 
grow in favor and in numbers are two: the state did not ex- 
tend to them the liberal aid which it provided in case of the 
lower primary schools, and the social advantages offered by 
them did not equal their greater cost to parents and pupils in 
time and money. To many it seemed preferable to bear the 
still greater cost of secondary education and secure the very 
real social and professional advantages that accrued therefrom. 
Development of the Infant School. — The period of the 
July Monarchy, as has been said above, was one of rapid reor- 
ganization of French industry by means of the application 
of mechanical power in large factories. The demand for wo- 
men and older children in industry took them out of the 
homes and led to conspicuous and shameful neglect of the 
young children. The growth of infant schools to take care of 
the younger children was steady during the last years of the 
Restoration Monarchy and the early years of the July Mon- 
archy. In 1837, 'a royal ordinance regulated the organization 
and supervision of the infant schools and placed them under 
the local and district education committees and made them a 
charge of the national department of public instruction. The 
law defined the infant schools, under the name "salles d'asile," 
as being charitable establishments to which children of both 



THE JULY MONARCHY AND EDUCATION 6i 

sexes could be admitted up to the age of six years in order 
to receive the advantage of maternal oversight and that first 
education which their age could profit by. The exercises of 
the infant school were to include religious instruction and the 
elements of reading, writing, and mental arithmetic. The 
exercises might further include instructive songs, needlework, 
and all kinds of manual exercises. The ordinance permitted 
the support of public infant schools by communes, departments, 
or the state. 

Adult Education. — A movement for adult education made 
rapid headway in France after 1830, which also may be re- 
garded as a result of the new conditions of industry. An order 
of March 22, 1836, regulated the conditions under which sucli 
schools might be conducted. The subject matter taught was 
that of the lower or higher primary schools, selected according 
to the needs of the community. Males fourteen years of age 
and females twelve years of age were made eligible for schools 
of their sex. By the year 1841 the number of adult classes in 
operation was 3403, with a total attendance of 68,508, and in 
1848 there were more than 115,000 persons receiving in- 
struction in such schools. 

Continued Government Control of Secondary and 
Higher Education. — We have seen how the promise of the 
Charter of 1830, guaranteeing freedom of instruction, was 
liberally carried out in the Law of 1833 as respected lower and 
higher primary schools. The government in 1836 presented a 
bill to the legislative bodies, by means of which it was pro- 
posed to reorganize secondary education in the spirit of the 
Charter's specific declaration for freedom of instruction. The 
bill, however, was rejected and no change was made in the 
general constitution of the national university during the life 
of the July Government. Secondary education continued to 
be under strict government supervision and authorization. The 
four types of secondary school were the royal colleges, main- 
tained principally by the state; the communal colleges, main- 
tained principally by the communes; institutions and pensions, 
and secondary schools maintained by religious organizations. 



62 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

The last three types were private in management and support 
— which means, generally speaking, that they were maintained 
under the auspices of religious associations. There were 
toward the end of the July INIonarchy 481 public and 1089 
private secondary schools, with a total enrollment of almost 
85.000 pupils.^ 

An effort seems to have been made by the government to 
combine the work of the higher primary school with that of 
the weaker communal colleges. If this had been successful, 
it might have represented a step toward the amalgamation 
of primary and secondary education in a unitary system of 
public instruction. No success, however, attended the pro- 
posals of the government, and the French secondary schools 
continued to be the schools of a higher social and economic 
class, entirely separate in administration and purpose from 
the primary schools, which were devoted to the educational 
needs of the farming and industrial population. 

ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical Background. — Hayes, A Political and Social 
History of Modern Europe, II; Hazen, Europe Since 1815. 

Education Source Material. — Greard, La legislation de I'instrnc- 
tion primaire en France (deuxieme edition), II; Lorain, Tableau de 
I'instruction primaire en France. 

Secondary Accounts. — Arnold, Popular Education in France; Com- 
payre, History of Pedagogy; Farrington, French Secondary Education. 

^ See Villemain, Rapport an Roi, p. 22. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE SECOND REPUBLIC AND THE SECOND 

EMPIRE (1848-1870) AND THE REVIVAL 

OF CHURCH INFLUENCE IN 

EDUCATION 

Revolution and Reaction. — The Second Republic, which 
was proclaimed February 24, 1848, lasted in fact until De- 
cember 2, 1 85 1, but in name until December 2, 1852, when 
the Second Empire was legally acknowledged. 

The events of February 1848 came in response to a very 
general agitation for a wider franchise and as such are to be 
regarded as a movement in the direction of democracy. The 
democratic phase of the revolution was complicated, however, 
with the strong Socialist sympathies of the workingmen of 
Paris, who exercised considerable influence on the events which 
took place up to the time of the election of a National Con- 
stituent Assembly, which met May the fourth. The political 
complexion of the Assembly was predominantly moderate Re- 
publican, while the Socialist element had almost completely 
lost influence through their failure to return more than a 
weak minority of members. The socialistic experiments of the 
period of the Provisional government and the bloody repres- 
sion of the Parisian working-class revolt during the "June 
days" may be followed in more general historical accounts and 
will not be recounted here. 

Financial difficulties and distrust of extreme political ex- 
periments disposed the great mass of the voters, which in- 
cluded all adult males, against the Republican party and re- 
sulted in the return under the new constitution in December 
1848 of a strong majority of Monarchist members of the 
Legislative Assembly and in the election of Prince Louis Na- 

63 



64 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

poleon Bonaparte as the first President. With its enemies in 
charge of the destinies of the new repubHc, its downfall, sooner 
or later, was practically assured. 

Democratic Educational Policies of the Provisional 
Government. — In no field of legislation are the varying for- 
tunes of the democratic principle during the first few years of 
the Second Republic more clearly shown than in the legisla- 
tive acts and bills and the circulars of the government regard- 
ing public education. As was the case in the political dis- 
turbances of the same period in Germany, the school teachers 
were aligned with the democratic tendencies in politics. Pre- 
ceding the April elections to the National Constituent As- 
sembly, Carnot, the Minister of Public Instruction in the Pro- 
visional Government, had sent oat a circular to the primary 
school teachers urging upon them their duty to instruct the 
population in regard to the choice of representatives. "May 
our 36,000 primary school teachers rise to my appeal and 
immediately spread broadcast before the population this kind 
of instruction. I hope that my voice may reach them in even 
the remotest villages. I entreat them to contribute their part 
in the founding of the Republic. It is not a matter at present, 
as it was in the time of our fathers, of defending the Republic 
against foreign foes, but rather of defending it against igno- 
rance and deception ; and it is to the teachers that that task be- 
longs." ^ The zeal of the primary teachers merited the praise 
of sincere Republicans, and they were rewarded by the in- 
crease of the state education budget in the following year to 
3,500,000 francs more than it had been in 1847, a great part 
of which sum was designed to improve the salaries of the 
teachers in the lowest grade of public instruction. 

The government education bill introduced by Carnot June 
30, 1848, possessed many of the characteristics which we asso- 
ciate with the educational necessities of a democracy. It pro- 
vided for at least one primary school in every commune of more 
than three hundred population, a rich curriculum, compulsory 

' Circular March 6, 1S48. 



DEMOCRACY TO AUTOCRACY IN EDUCATION 65 

attendance of both sexes, free tuition, a liberal salary schedule 
for the teachers, and a house for a combined school and dwell- 
ing, with a yard and garden for every teacher."^ 

A committee appointed July 5 by the Provisional Govern- 
ment to inquire into and report upon the bill submitted by 
Carnot made its report in April 1849 in spite of the fact that 
r on January 5, 1849, the new government had withdrawn 
Carnot's bill and had on December 10 preceding appointed a 
new committee to report on the state of public education in 
the country. The report of the committee appointed in July 
by the Provisional Government was made by M. Barthelemy 
Saint-Hilaire. The bill which he submitted was comprehensive 
and extremely liberal, approximating closely the spirit of the 
less fully worked-out bill of Carnot. It named as state edu- 
cational institutions salles d'asiles, elementary and higher pri- 
mary schools, primary normal schools, schools for apprentices, 
artisans, and adults, and workhouse and prison schools." A 
rich curriculum was to be provided in the elementary and 
higher primary schools, and the conditions of education for 
girls were to be greatly improved. Free tuition was to be al- 
lowed in the primary normal schools, of which there was to be 
at least one in each department. Compulsory attendance up 
to the age of fourteen was to be the rule, with exceptions in 
the case of children who had received a certificate of pro- 
ficiency after the age of thirteen. In one respect the plan of 
this bill fell short of that of Carnot's, in that it proposed the 
continuation of the payment of school fees, with the proviso 
that communes able to meet the conditions of the bill without 
departmental or state aid, should be privileged to make pri- 
mary education of all degrees gratuitous. 

Monarchist Distrust of Liberal Educational Policies. — 
With the report of the committee of the new government, ap- 
pointed on December 10, 1848, following the return of a strong 
monarchical majority to the Legislative Assembly, as men- 
tioned above, the fortunes of the primary teacher and of state- 
controlled public education in general experienced a decided 



66 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

reverse. Matthew Arnold says that the conquerors of the 
Revolution did not forget that it had made the schoolmasters 
its missionaries. 

Attack upon the Primary Normal Schools. — Central in 
the attack upon the school teachers led by this committee was 
the distrust which the political conservatives felt for the train- 
ing given in the normal schools. In a report on the govern- 
ment education bill, a parliamentary committee put itself on 
record as unalterably opposed to the ambitious program of the 
normal schools of the time. The studies were said to have 
taken on exaggerated dimensions quite beyond the scope of 
fitting primary teachers for their duties. "Could you believe," 
says the official report of the committee, "that in those schools 
they teach logarithms, algebra, trigonometry, and cosmography 
in the light of astronomy, and that there are given, not just the 
elementary and practical notions but complete and compre- 
hensive courses in geometry, physics, chemistry, mechanics, 
etc?" -■ They considered that after advanced training of this 
character the student was quite unfitted to turn to the nar- 
row and commonplace duties of a rural teacher, and was al- 
most of necessity committed to extreme and dangerous social 
and political theories as a result of his unhappiness in so 
humble and ill-paid a position. ^The ideal primary teacher 
they found to be "simple-hearted, industrious, limited as well 
in his needs as in his desires, and for whom his pupils and 
his commune were the entire world; in a word, the type of 
teacher which the normal schools have not given us and which 
they never in the world will give." ^ The extreme opponents 
of the normal schools did not have their way, which would 
have been to abolish the normal schools as a menace to na- 
tional strength and social stability, but the result of their agi- 
tation was a thoroughgoing reorganization of the studies and 
discipline of those schools. 

In an official order of July 31, 185 1, the reorganized cur- 
riculum of the normal schools was limited to moral and reli- 

'Beugnot, Report of October 6, 1849. Cf. the Prussian Regulations 
of 1854. See pp. 102 ff. 



DEMOCRACY TO AUTOCRACY IX EDUCATION 67 

gious instruction, reading, writing, the elements of the French 
language, arithmetic, the legal system of weights and measures, 
and religious music. As additional optional subjects were 
given practical arithmetic, the elements of history and geogra- 
phy, elementary facts of physics and the natural history of 
common objects, elementary instruction in agriculture, industry 
and hygiene, surveying, levelling and linear design, and gym- 
nastics. _,■ The selections to be read by the students under the 
subject of reading were limited in scope and prescribed in 
detail, with the expectation thatvtheir reading would be cur- 
tailed to the meager pattern handed down by the govern- 
ment and that free browsing in the library of the normal 
schools would be stopped.'^ An examination of the reading 
materials prescribed shows that religious selections greatly 
predominated. The "collection of selections from good 
authors," which was one of^he literary works allowed, was to 
be prepared under the eye of the government. The language 
studies of the normal schools were to be dictated by the aim 
of producing good style. Grammatical subtleties were to be 
shunned and exercises and examples were to be preferred to 
rules and theories. Out of the forty lessons to be given in 
geography, twenty-four were to deal with France, and of these 
at least six with the department in which the school was 
located. \ In history, out of a total of forty-one lessons, thirty- 
one were to deal with the history of France, but of these only 
three were to relate to the period following the French Revo- 
lution. 

From many points of view the developments of the primary 
normal schools in France under the Second Republic and the 
Second Empire resembled very closely the developments which 
were taking place at the same time in Prussia through the 
"Regulations of 1854." In the case of France, as of Prussia, 
at that time, the movement was dictated by political reaction. 
The restrictions upon the normal schools were restrictions upon 
popular education, because they tended to limit the outlook 
and curtail the general education of the primary school teacher 
and thus to limit the scope of the activities of the primary 



68 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

school. As such, the developments of the fifties must be re- 
garded as an important stage in the evolution of French pri- 
mary education. They represent the hardening of the tradition 
that primary instruction was the instruction intended for the 
great mass of the people, and, as such, a thing apart from 
secondary instruction, which was to serve the economically 
favored classes and to provide, out of that group, the intellec- 
tual and political leadership of the nation. The distinction was 
not so sharp between these two institutions as it was at that 
time in Prussia, for French political and social life was con- 
siderably more liberal than that of Prussia at that time. Later 
changes in French education tended to lessen the distinction 
still more, but in 1850 that distinction was present and it has 
remained ever since. We are unable to understand French 
education of today unless we have in^mind the influence of 
social and economic rank which establishes one system of 
schools for the common people and another for the elite. 

The Education Law of 1850 

After long deliberation, the attitude of the Monarchist ma- 
jority regarding education was enacted in the law of March 
15, 1850. This law is chiefly to be considered from two stand- 
points, namely, that of the great increase of the Church's in- 
fluence in education, and that of the strengthening of the na- 
tional organization of education through the elaboration of 
administrative machinery. 

The Law of 1850 and the Church. — The July Monarchy 
had been more or less anti-clerical. It cannot be said to have 
oppressed the Church, but it had resisted at many points the 
aspirations of the Church for greater liberty of teaching. We 
have seen how the clause of the Charter of 1830, promising 
liberty of instruction, had been fulfilled only as respected pri- 
mary education, while the university monopoly over secondary 
and higher education had been maintained and strengthened 
in the face of the assaults of the clerical party. The Revolu- 
tion of 1848 resulted In a clear-cut issue between political 



DEMOCRACY TO AUTOCRACY IN EDUCATION 69 

radicalism and the Church. Pope Pius IX, driven from Rome 
by the popular uprising of 1848 and only restored in 1849 by 
a French army, became and remained the unrelenting foe 
of the new nationalism and the new political liberalism.' Mean- 
while, the Socialist menace in France had thrown the bour- 
geois opponents of the Church clearly on the side of the 
Clerical-Monarchist combinationV;;/and those who had been 
most staunch during the July Monarchy in their resistance 
to the educational activities of the Church, had come to be- 
lieve that there was no danger in giving the Church greater 
influence in that field. Accordingly the Law of 1850 and the 
practical administering of this law favored the educational 
aspirations of the Church at almost every point. 

A very important advantage was given the Church in the 
matter of the constitution of the important educational coun- 
cils and committees provided by the law. In the Superior 
Council of Public Instruction there were to be four arch- 
bishops or bishops. As the academies (see p. 38) were in- 
creased in number and decreased in extent by the law to one 
for each department, the rector, or head of the academy, was 
comparatively insignificant and unable to stand up against 
the bishop, who was ex officio a member of the Academy Coun- 
cil and the big man in it. In the communal board of school 
supervision the cure, jointly with the mayor, was charged with 
the oversight and moral direction of primary instruction. 
Other members might be added, but the cure remained the 
chief figure. 

\ The law made further concessions to the Church in accept- 
ing, in the case of women teachers who belonged to religious 
organizations devoted to teaching, letters of obedience in place 
of the regular certificate, in allowing any minister of religion 
the right to give secondary instruction to not more than 
four young men who intended to enter the ministry, and in 
allowing existing ecclesiastical schools to continue upon con- 
• dition of submitting to state inspection. 

Abolition of State Monopoly in Secondary and Higher 
Education. — However, the greatest advantages which the 



70 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

Church reaped from the Law of 1850 were the aboHtion of the 
monopoly which the University had enjoyed over secondary 
and higher education since 1808 and the simphfication of the 
conditions under which private schools of all kinds might be 
maintained. The law stated that any Frenchman, twenty-five 
years of age, with a clean court record, might organize a 
secondary school, after due notice given, upon presenting to the 
rector of the academy (a) a certificate of experience, stating 
that he had performed, for at least five years, the duties of 
professor or inspector in a public or private secondary school; 
(b) either a bachelor's diploma or a special certificate awarded 
by an examining committee; and (c) a plan of the premises 
of the school and an outline of the course of study. When we 
consider that the examining committee was appointed by the 
Academy Council, that the certificate of experience might be 
dispensed with by action of the same council, and that the 
bishop was the most influential member of the Academy 
Council, we can see that the new law was more than liberal 
in opening the door to church influence in secondary educa- 
tion. Private education in France has always, in general, 
meant education conducted by religious orders, and this has 
been especially true in the case of secondary schools, for 
which private resources have been inadequate. 

Private Primary Schools. — In the case of private primary 
education, the limitations as to the preparation and proficiency 
of the teacher were practically removed. Any Frenchman 
twenty-one years of age might conduct a primary school if 
provided with a certificate of capacity, a bachelor's diploma, a 
certificate of experience, or a certificate stating that he had 
been admitted to a state professional school, or bearing the 
title of minister of one of the religions recognized by the state. 
Furthermore, a private school in any commune might be ac- 
cepted by the Academy Council as the public school for that 
comm.une on condition that the commune pay in that private 
school the tuition fees of all indigent children. The law • 
practically encouraged the Church to extend its system of 
private primary and secondary schools as far as it was able and 



DEMOCRACY TO AUTOCRACY IN EDUCATION 71 

to supplant, wherever possible, the public schools of both 
grades of instruction with schools under religious auspices. 

Unification and Elaboration of the Central Authority. — 
The Law of 1850 represents, however, in spite of its favors 
to the Church, a very real development of public education, 
especially in the elaboration and improvement of administra- 
tive agencies. In place of a system of education divided in 
control between the authorities for primary education and the 
University, the law set up a single state-system with a Minister 
of Public Instruction at its head and a Superior Council of Pub- 
lic Instruction from which he was to take advice and with which 
he divided supreme authority. The composition of this Su- 
perior Council is of considerable significance because it shows 
the purpose of securing a body representative of the general 
public opinion in the country at large. The twenty-eight mem- 
bers were partly appointive and partly elective. The President 
named eight members for life from among professional edu- 
cators in the service of the state and also three representatives 
of private instruction as a permanent section. Four mem- 
bers represented the Catholic Church and there was one mem- 
ber each for the Reformed, Lutheran, and Jewish churches, 
chosen by the appropriate church bodies. There were three 
Councilors of State, chosen by their colleagues; three members 
of the Court of Appeal, chosen by their colleagues; and three 
members of the Institute, chosen in the general assembly of 
that body. The elective members were chosen for three years. 
The number of members of the Superior Council and the broad 
basis of their selection indicate an effort to secure a body rep- 
resentative of a wide range of public opinion and competent to 
give sound advice on educational policies. In the permanent 
section of the Council there was provided an expert group 
charged with the preliminary examination of matters to be 
presented to the Council as a whole, while the Council was 
expected to give its opinion on all educational measures ema- 
nating from the office of the Minister of Public Instruction. 
It was particularly to be consulted on all regulations regarding 
examinations, courses of study, and the supervision of primary 



72 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

schools, on the creation of new university faculties and new 
public secondary schools, and on the textbooks that were to be 
allowed in the public schools and those which ought to be for- 
bidden in private schools as subversive of good morals, the 
constitution, and the laws. It also had important judicial 
functions in school cases appealed from lower authorities. The 
sequel will show that this Superior Council was too liberal an 
agency to suit the autocratic desires of the President, Louis 
Napoleon Bonaparte, who materially changed its composition 
by the Organic Decree of March 9, 1852. 

The Academy and Its Administration. — For educational 
purposes the state was organized by the Law of 1850 into acad- 
emies, one for each department. The administrative head of 
the academy was the rector, who was assisted by one or more 
inspectors. An Academy Council stood in the same relation to 
him as the Superior Council did to the Minister of PubHc 
Instruction. The Academy Council was broadly representative 
of religious and official, and to a slight extent of educational 
interests, chosen by the groups represented. It had important 
functions in connection with the teaching, the discipline, and 
the administration of public schools, business accounts, the cer- 
tification of teachers, the opening of private schools, the fixing 
of school fees, and the making out of the salary lists of teachers. 

Increase of Inspection. — In the matter of inspection of 
schools, the Law of 1850 represented real development toward a 
national system of education. The law called for four types of 
inspectors: (a) general and superior inspectors, (6) the rectors 
and academy inspectors, (c) inspectors of primary education, 
and (d) the cantonal deputies, and the communal mayor and 
cure. The three higher classes of inspectors were appointed 
by the Minister of Public Instruction, thus insuring respon- 
sibility to the central authority and uniformity of purpose. 
The inspection of private schools, primary and secondary, was 
limited to matters connected with morals, hygiene, and health. 

The Academy Council appointed examining committees to 
grant certificates. It also designated several persons residing 
in each canton, known as cantonal deputies, to exercise lay 



DEMOCRACY TO AUTOCRACY IN EDUCATION 73 

supervision over primary education and make reports on 
the general conditions of primary education to the Academy 
Council. 

Other Noteworthy Provisions of the Law of 1850.^ — 
The Law of 1850 did not mention the higher primary schools, 
but gave as optional subjects in the primary schools practically 
those which had comprised the curriculum of the higher pri- 
mary schools under the Law of 1833. Two forms of public 
secondary schools were named: the lycees, established and 
maintained by the state, with the cooperation of departments 
and towns, and the communal colleges, established and main- 
tained by the communes. The Minister of Public Instruction 
maintained control, having in mind the advice of Superior and 
Academy Councils, over the discipline, curriculum, and finan- 
cial management of all public secondary schools. 

The law continued the wise provisions for assisting the 
weaker communes and departments in meeting the costs of 
education that had been made in the Law of 1833. 

In many ways the new law exhibited an improvement in the 
status of teachers and of the profession in general. The mini- 
mum salary of the communal teacher was set at 600 francs a 
year. He was also to be provided with a suitable building to 
serve as a school and a dwelling. A system of teachers' pen- 
sions was promised in the law. 

The list of schools recognized as permissive at public cost 
was enlarged by the addition of infant schools and schools for 
adults and apprentices. It was further provided that every 
commune of 800 inhabitants, when it could do so out of its 
own resources, should have a separate primary school for 
girls. New and higher standards of instruction were implied 
in the provision for adjunct teachers in those schools in which, 
in the judgment of the Academy Council, the number of pupils 
called for them. The provision of the earlier law that all indi- 
gent children should be admitted free of tuition, was continued 
in the Law of 1850, and the significant advance was made of 
allowing any commune that could do so out of its own re- 
sources, to support one or more entirely free schools. 



74 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 



Government and Education after December 2, 1851 

Almost from the date of his election as President in 1848, 
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte showed signs of desiring to make 
his power supreme in the state, and there were many ele- 
ments in the political and economic situation that favored his 
ambition to retain his office after the expiration of the legal 
term. The coup d'etat of December 2, 1851, which gave him 
dictatorial powers under the title of Prince-President, was in 
general well received by the great mass of the population. 
Under the new constitution, which he drew up, a show of popu- 
lar representation was maintained, but in all essentials the 
will of the Prince-President was not interfered with. On 
December 2, 1852, he had himself proclaimed Napoleon III, 
Emperor of the French, thus realizing in name what he had 
been for a year in fact. The control of the government by 
Louis Napoleon after December 2, 1851, was as autocratic 
and absolute as had been that of his uncle. Napoleon I. The 
Legislative Body, elected every six years on the basis of uni- 
versal suffrage, had no real power, while the Senate, composed 
of the Emperor's appointees, merely echoed his own purposes. 
The catalogue of powers vested in the Emperor comprised the 
real source of government. Following the coup d'etat, the 
press was brought completely under government control 
through the requirement of official authorization for any news- 
paper or periodical. Any journal could be suppressed at will — 
a power freely exercised. Freedom of assembly was denied in 
the same way. Furthermore, the Emperor fostered a system 
of publicity and propaganda which was designed to make him 
strong before the public. The Organic Decree of March 9, 
1852, is the correlate in the field of education of this treatment 
of the press and the rights of public assembly and free discus- 
sion. By means of this decree the Prince-President aimed to 
secure as complete power over the means of forming the on- 
coming generation through the schools as he had secured over 
the means of forming public opinion in the existing generation. 



DEMOCRACY TO AUTOCRACY IN EDUCATION 75 

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte Gains Autocratic Control 
over Education. — The Decree of 1852 gave to the -Prince- 
President, without qualification or appeal, the power to name 
and to dismiss "the members of the Superior Council, the 
general inspectors, the rectors, the professors of the faculties, 
of the College de France, of the Museum of Natural History, 
and of the School of Modern Oriental Languages, the members 
of the Bureau of Longitude, and of the observatories of Paris 
and Marseilles, and the managers and curators of the public 
libraries. 1^' The Minister of Public Instruction, who was ap- 
pointed by the President and responsible to him alone, was 
given the power to name and dismiss "the professors of the 
National School of Archives, the academy inspectors, the mem- 
bers of the Academy Councils who formerly have been elec- 
tive, the officials and professors of preparatory schools of medi- 
cine and pharmacy, the officials and professors of public sec- 
ondary education, the primary inspectors, the employees of 
public libraries, and, in general, all the persons attached to 
establishments of public instruction appertaining to the state." 
"Directly and without appeal," the Minister was further em- 
powered to pronounce upon members of public secondary in- 
struction: "reprimand before the Academy Council, censure 
before the Superior Council, removal from one position to 
another, suspension from duty, with or without total or partial 
loss of salary, and recall of the privilege of teaching." He 
was given power to make the same pronouncements against 
the officials and professors of the faculties, with the exception 
of the recall of the privilege of teaching, which was reserved 
to the President, ^o complete the chain of powers over edu- 
cation, the rectors, by delegation of power from the minister, 
were given the function of naming the communal teachers. 

The power given to the government by the Decree of 1852 
was exercised to close the mouths of all the professors who 
dared to protest against the usurpations of the Prince-Presi- 
dent. A number of prominent professors were dismissed for 
"having given instruction troublesome to the public peace." 
All teachers were compelled to take an oath of loyalty or to 



76 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

resign, and their activities were closely observed. As an 
example of the petty tyranny to which the teachers of the 
faculties were subjected, an official order commanded them 
to cut off their moustaches and thus to remove from their 
faces, as from their minds, the last vestiges of anarchy. Not 
content with such control of persons^ the government attempted 
a control of ideas, removing as far as possible from the cur- 
riculum those subjects that would invite consideration of 
contemporary political problems. In the Regulations for the 
Higher Normal School of September 15, 1852, we read that 
"dangerous or worthless books are not allowed in the school. 
The reading of daily papers, with the exception of The 
Monitor,^ is forbidden as foreign to good study." 

Further Administrative Reorganization. — An important 
modification of the administrative system was brought about 
by the law of June 14, 1854, which extended the area of the 
academy so that thereafter the country should be divided into 
sixteen academies only, instead of one academy for each de- 
partment. The rector of the academy was still to remain the 
head of all three grades of education for that administrative 
unit, but the department council was given new educational 
functions, and the prefect, the civil head of the department, 
was made the head of primary education. The new law gave 
the prefect all the powers in respect to primary education 
which the rector had exercised under the Law of 1850, the 
most important of which was probably the power of appointing 
the primary teachers. With the direct control of primary 
education in the hands of the prefect, the system of govern- 
ment control of education was complete and immediate from 
the highest to the lowest point. 

The development of a system of public education so highly 
organized and so responsive to the will of the individual who 
exercised autocratic control as Emperor of the French people, 
is of more than immediate interest. It represents, to be sure, 
the power which Napoleon III exercised. More than that, it 
represents the development of a set of educational institutions 
' The Monitor was the official newspaper. 



DEMOCRACY TO AUTOCRACY IN EDUCATION 77 

that was found to be serviceable under the Hberal government 
of the Third Republic after 1870. The instrument, organized 
in the interest of tyranny, was acceptable to the French desire 
for centralization and logical organization. We shall see later 
how it was adapted to the uses of the Republic. 

Material Prosperity under the Second Empire. — Until 
a dangerous and vacillating foreign policy wrecked the Second 
Empire, the government succeeded in maintaining internal 
peace and in fostering a high degree of economic prosperity. 
The period 1850- 1870 was characterized by rapid extension 
of banking facilities, by almost feverish activity in building 
railways, constructing highways, and excavating canals, by 
great development of the ocean-carrying trade in vessels driven 
by steam, and by the general improvement of agriculture 
through the reclamation of waste lands, the introduction of 
improved farming machinery, and the adoption of modern, 
scientific methods of tillage, cropping, and animal husbandry. 
It was the material prosperity of the fifties and sixties that 
enabled France to pay off so quickly what was regarded as the 
staggering indemnity imposed upon her by Prussia after the 
War of 1870. This increase of wealth was more immediately 
related to the matter of education in making possible the 
improvements in public education that came in the period 
of the Second Empire and also the tremendous stimulation 
of public education which came with the great series of laws 
following 1879. 

The Later Years of the Second Empire. — We have 
already seen how the financial status of the primary teacher 
was improved by the Law of 1850 and how the permissive 
clause of that act enabled communes to support at their own 
cost entirely free primary schools. A law passed in 1867 en- 
couraged communes to establish free primary schools through 
an offer of state aid for that purpose. The same law com- 
pelled all communes of five hundred inhabitants and over to 
maintain a separate school for girls. Under the ministry of 
M. Duruy, the restrictive attitude toward the primary normal 
schools was quite definitely altered and the efficiency of that 



78 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

branch of education greatly improved. In general, the period 
of the Second Empire saw a pronounced improvement in the 
material conditions of education, including the improvement 
of the living conditions of the teacher and the improvement 
of school buildings, also in the sta^ng of the schools, the 
extension of new forms of education brought under public 
control and given public support, and the elaboration of the 
means of inspection and supervision of the instruction given 
in the schools. 

The later years of the Second Empire are frequently de- 
scribed as its liberal phase, during which Napoleon III showed 
signs of wishing to ameliorate the tyranny which he had 
established. It is even sometimes asserted that if the War 
of 1870 had not intervened, France might have undergone a 
gradual evolution in the direction of representative democratic 
institutions without any violent break with the Second Empire. 
Such a change was not, however, destined to occur. The very 
insecurity of his position as a political usurper tempted 
Napoleon III to try to keep his popularity through military 
and diplomatic ventures. In this ambition he suffered one 
defeat after another and lost his imperial title in the crushing 
defeats of Sedan and Metz. 

ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical Background. — Hayes, A Political and Social 
History of Modern Europe, II; Hazen, Europe Since 1815. 

Education Source Material. — Greard, La legislation de I'instruction 
primaire en France (denxieme edition), IV and V. 

Secondary Accounts. — Arnold, Popular Education in France; Far- 
rington, Public Primary School System of France; Farrington, French 
Secondary Schools. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE THIRD REPUBLIC AND FURTHER 

DEVELOPMENTS OF NATIONAL 

EDUCATION (1870 TO PRESENT) 

Political Conditions Following the Franco-Prussian 
War. — Upon the military defeat of his armies and the capture 
of Emperor Napoleon III by the German forces, a Republic 
was declared in France. Of the parties which had united to 
form a republican form of government, the Republicans wished 
to continue the war against Germany in the interest of better 
terms of peace, while the Monarchists were in favor of an 
early peace and the restoration of normal economic and indus- 
trial life. When elections to a National Assembly which was 
to treat for peace were held, an overwhelming majority of 
Monarchists was returned. This result indicated rather that 
the people were desirous of an early peace than that they were 
in favor of monarchical institutions, but since the National 
Assembly elected to decide upon terms of peace lengthened its 
life for four years and made itself into a constitutional assem- 
bly, the power of the Monarchists was prolonged until the 
elections of 1877 and 1878, when Republican majorities were 
elected to both the Assembly and the Senate. 

The Political Institutions of the Third Republic. — In 
the new government erected after the overthrow of the Second 
Empire, the local institutions which had been developing since 
the period of the French Revolution, were continued practi- 
cally without change. The high degree of centralization which 
had been characteristic of French political institutions for some 
centuries and had reached an extreme form under Napoleon 
III, was carried over into the Third Republic. Under the 
Republic, however, means were provided of discovering the 

79 



8o NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

national will through the suffrage. The French seem to have 
adopted the principle that there must be, and is, a discoverable 
national purpose, and that effective means of carrying out that 
purpose in detail through efficient machinery of government 
must be provided. After 1870, manhood suffrage became the 
basis of all elections and the British parliamentary principle 
of the responsibility of the Cabinet to the legislative body was 
adapted to French conditions. In order to keep open all the 
sources of enlightenment that are essential to the development 
and the self-correction of public opinion, liberal press-laws 
were passed by the new government and full rights of associa- 
tion, public meeting, and freedom of speech were guaranteed. 
Finally, upon the assumption of control by the Republican 
majority following the elections of 1877 and 1878, a system of 
elementary education was provided for the French people that 
was related to the demands of democracy and full manhood 
suffrage. 

Reprisals against the Church. — Before considering the 
important educational legislation of the eighties, it is necessary 
to recall the conflict which had developed between the Republi- 
cans and the Clerical Party. We have already pointed out the 
alliance between the Church and conservative or reactionary 
political parties which had existed during the Second Empire. 
The same condition obtained in intensified form during the 
Third Republic. From the outset, the Church was allied with 
the Monarchists, so that Monarchist and Clerical became 
almost synonymous. The intensification of feeling for and 
against the Church which ensued upon the papal encyclical 
and the Syllabus of Errors^ which accompanied it in 1864, 
and the vigorous participation of Pope Pius IX in the fight 
against liberalism and nationalism during the years that fol- 
lowed, up to his death, entered very definitely into the align- 
ments of French domestic politics. Gambetta, in the cam- 
paign of 1877, made anti-clericalism the main issue, and the 
triumph which was achieved at that time was no less a victory 

^ See Hayes, A Social and Political History of Modern Europe, Vol- 
ume II, 226-30. Also p. 184 of this book. 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 8i 

for the republican form of government than it was a decisive 
defeat for the Church. 

A New Primary Normal School Law. — The first of a 
series of education laws by which France came nearer to the 
educational objectives that had been the aim of liberal political 
parties since the forties, at least, was passed in 1879. This 
law had as its object the creation of improved facilities for 
the training of teachers in the primary schools and it called 
for the establishment of separate normal schools for men 
and women in each department. The law provided that the 
President of the Republic, with the approval of the Superior 
Council of Public Instruction, might authorize two depart- 
ments to combine for the establishment and maintenance of one 
or both of their normal schools. By the terms of this law 
the departments continued to bear the expense of the normal 
schools. 

Primary Education Made Free. — Four laws fundamental 
in the establishment of a national system of primary education 
were passed in the eighties. They are usually spoken of as 
the Ferry Laws, from M. Jules Ferry, the Minister of Public 
Instruction at the time of their passage, whose influence was 
powerful in the educational revival which took place under 
the early Republican government. The first of these, dated 
June 16, 1 88 1, abolished fees in the public primary schools. 
By the same law, the boarding expenses of pupils in the nor- 
mal schools were taken over by the state. 

Compulsory Attendance. — The law of March 28, 1882, 
established compulsory attendance for all children from the 
age of six to the age of thirteen. The law provided that a 
child might meet theintention of the law by attendance at a 
public or a private school, at a primary or a secondary school, 
or even by private instruction in the home. 

For the carrying out of the provisions of the law, school 
committees {commissions scolaires) were set up in every com- 
mune. It was provided that any child who had reached the 
age of eleven might take a public examination for the certifi- 
cat d'etudes primaires. If successful, he was to be excused 



82 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

from further attendance. Children who were taught at home 
were compelled to undergo a yearly examination to determine 
whether their private instruction had been adequate and 
efficient. 

A Secularized and Expanded Curriculum, — The Law of 
1882 is further important for the significant change which it 
brought about in the curriculum of the primary schools. In 
this law, primary instruction was said to include moral and 
civic instruction; reading and writing; the French language 
and the elements of French literature; geography, particularly 
that of France; history, particularly that of France down to 
and including the most recent historical events; some of the 
commoner notions of law and political economy; the elements 
of natural science, physics, and mathematics and their appli- 
cations to agriculture, hygiene, and the industrial arts; hand- 
work and the use of the tools of the principal trades; the ele- 
ments of drawing, modelling, and music; gymnastics; and 
military exercises for the boys and needlework for the girls. 
It will be impossible in this connection to go into the details 
of the application of this curriculum, but our interest in the 
relationship between the subject matter of instruction and 
the national purpose in education makes it desirable to note 
the uses of some parts of the curriculum to that end. 

Instruction for Nationalistic Ends. — It is often said that 
the revival of French public education in the eighties was 
stimulated by the very general conviction that the Prussian 
victory in the War of 1870 was to be attributed in considerable 
measure to the superior educational conditions in that country. 
The Prussian schoolmaster was said to have wen the war. 
The educational revival, coming at a time when defeat rankled 
in the minds of the French people and when all political 
thought was concerned with the problem of regaining national 
efficiency, exhibited strong nationalistic motives and purposes. 
Perhaps foremost among the subjects of the curriculum which 
reflected that spirit was the new subject, instruction in morals 
and civics, which had been substituted for the time-honored 
instruction in religion and morals. The purpose of the subject 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 83 

was the socialization of the pupils in terms of French nation- 
alism and Republican politics. 

Moral and Civic Instruction 

In a circular dated November 17, 1883/ the Minister of 
Public Instruction addressed himself to the primary teachers 
of the country to explain the meaning and purpose of the new 
subject of moral and civic instruction. He said that the law 
of 1882 affirmed "the desire of establishing for ourselves a 
national education and of founding it upon conceptions of 
duty and justice which the law-maker does not hesitate to 
inscribe among the number of fundamental truths of which 
no one is at liberty to be ignorant." The teacher was not 
expected to be a philosopher or an extempore theologian, 
but was rather expected to pass on to the rising generation 
"that good old-fashioned morality which we have had handed 
down to us from our fathers and which we consider ourselves 
honored in following in the relationships of everyday life 
without stopping to discuss its philosophical foundations." 
The method advised was to use no definitions, no abstract 
principles, but a great many illustrations, particularly those 
taken from within the pupil's own experience. The Minister 
indicated the general interest that had been exhibited in the 
new subject by saying that philosophers and publicists, among 
them the most distinguished of that generation, had con- 
sidered it an honor to be co-laborers with the teachers and 
were contributing almost weekly some new book for the pro- 
posed moral and civic instruction. The Minister's circular 
reflected throughout the immediacy of the quarrel with the 
Church. At one point we read: "It depends upon you, sir, 
to hasten through your own activities the day when this in- 
struction will everywhere be not only accepted, but appre- 
ciated, honored, and loved, as it deserves to be. Those very 
persons whose discontent some have tried to excite will not 

' See Greard, La legislation de I'instruction primaire en France, V, 
pp. 5S0-SS. 



84 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

long resist the experience which is daily before their eyes. 
When they will have seen you at work; when they will have 
realized that you have no ulterior motive other than to make 
their children better informed and better behaved; when they 
will have noticed that your lessons in morals begin to have the 
effect of causing their children to come from your school with 
better habits, gentler*, and more respectful manners, more 
honesty, more obedience, a greater taste for work, greater 
submissiveness to duty, and, in short, all the signs of a con- 
stant moral improvement, then the cause of the lay school will 
have been won." 

As organized for practical use in the schools, the subject 
matter for instruction in morals was arranged in four grades 
to be taught in the infant section, the primary section, the 
intermediate section, and the higher section, respectively.^ 
In each of these sections the same round of moral conceptions 
was treated in accordance with the maturity and capacity of 
the children. To take up the work of the intermediate section 
in greater detail, we learn from the official program of the 
primary schools that it consisted of talks by the teacher, read- 
ings and interpretation, and practical exercises. The class 
work and the reading done by the children were to be co- 
ordinated so as to include all of the following points: 

I. (a) The child in the family; duties toward parents and 
grandparents: Obedience, respect, love, gratitude. 
Help the parents in their work; relieve them in 
their illness; come to their aid in old age. 

(b) Duties of brothers and sisters: Love one another; 

protection of the younger children by the older; 
responsibility for setting a good example. 

(c) Duties toward servants: Treat them politely and with 

kindness. 

(d) Duties of the child at school: Regular attendance, 

^ For full statement of subject matter see Buisson and Farrington, 
French Educational Ideals of Today, pp. 27-31, from which the extract 
which follows is taken. 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 85 

obedience, industry, civility. Duties toward the 
teacher; duties toward comrades. 
(e) The fatherland: France, her greatness and her mis- 
fortune. Duties toward the fatherland and toward 
society. 

II. (a) Duties toward oneself: Care of the body, cleanliness, 

sobriety, and temperance. Dangers of alcoholism; 
weakening of the intelligence and of the will; ruin 
of the health. Gymnastics. 

(b) Material goods: Economy, avoidance of debt, evil 

effects of the passion for gambling; duty to avoid 
immoderate desire for money and gain; prodigality; 
avarice. Work; economy of time; obligation of all 
men to work; nobility of manual labor. 

(c) The soul: Veracity and sincerity; never lie. Personal 

dignity, self-respect. Modesty; recognition of one's 
own faults. Evils of pride, vanity, coquetry, fri- 
volity. Shame of ignorance and sloth. Courage in 
danger and misfortune; patience, spirit of initiative. 
Dangers of rage. 

(d) Treat animals with gentleness. Do not let them suffer 

uselessly. The Grammont law; societies for the 
protection of animals. 

(e) Duties toward others: 'Justice and charity; the Golden 

Rule. Never injure the life, person, property, or 
reputation of another. Kindness, brotherhood. 
Tolerance, respect for the beliefs of others. Little 
by little alcoholism entails the violation of all duties 
toward others (laziness, violence, etc.).^ 

III. Duties toward God: The teacher is not required to give 

a course tx projesso on the nature and attributes of 
God. The instruction which he should give to all 
without distinction is limited to two points; 

' In this whole course the teacher should assume the existence of con- 
science, of the moral law, and of moral obligation; he should appeal 
to the feeling and idea of responsibility. He does not undertake to 
demonstrate any of these by theoretical exposition. 



86 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

First, he teaches his pupils not to speak the name 
of God thoughtlessly. He clearly associates in their 
minds a feeling of respect and veneration for the 
First Cause and the Perfect Being; and he accus- 
toms each one to surround the idea of God with the 
same respect even when it is presented to him in a 
form different from that of his own religion. 

Then, and without paying attention to the ordi- 
nances peculiar to the different religious beliefs, the 
teacher endeavors to make the child understand and 
feel that the first homage he owes the Divinity is 
obedience to the laws of God revealed to him by his 
conscience and his reason. 

The efforts of the teacher of morals and civics were from 
the first supplemented by the use of reading books in those 
subjects which had been prepared, in many cases, by scholars 
and literary men among the most noted and influential of 
France. No single book is prescribed for use in all the schools, 
but all books must have passed through a critical examination 
on the part of the educational authorities before they are placed 
on the list of books that may be used in the public schools. 
The wide variety of books that have been used in connection 
with the teaching of morals and civics and that are at the 
present time in use, makes it impossible to say from an ex- 
amination of the books alone what is the predominant spirit of 
this instruction. However, much as they vary in detail, certain 
safe generalizations may be made from them. 

All of these reading books aim at the socialization of the 
individual in terms of French nationality and of the republi- 
can form of government. Many of the virtues taught might 
apply in any modern Western country, such as industry, tem- 
perance, neighborliness, and kindness to animals; but the 
instruction inevitably leads to an emphasis on the duties of the 
citizen to his nation. The pupil is never allowed for long to 
forget that he is a Frenchman caught up in the net of a 
competitive national organization which necessarily and in 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 87 

justice makes heavy demands upon his time and his pocket- 
book and which may, in the last resource, ask him to sacrifice 
his life for his country. The type of patriotism varies in the 
various books, but in those which have had the largest popu- 
larity as indicated by sales, it is of a warm emotional nature 
that aims directly at maintaining national feeling at a high 
pitch. It is very evidently the purpose of this instruction to 
cause the French boys and girls to realize the necessity for a 
large and efficient army and navy^ for the upkeep of which 
they must pay heavy taxes, and to make them willing to bear 
their share of the national burden because they prize their 
institutions, their language and their traditions — which can be 
protected only by military force. Many passages found 
here and there in the pages of these manuals of moral and 
civic instruction very definitely recall the wrongs which France 
has suffered at the hands of Germany and either directly or by 
implication aim at reviving in the young French citizen a 
hatred of the Prussians. At times the motive is very plain 
and its exposition is accomplished with a maximum of bitter- 
ness, but in fairness it must be added that in many of the 
manuals this note is silent. On the positive side, the virtues 
of the French institutions, the glories of the historic past and 
present greatness of France, and the everyday affection for 
one's home and countryside are so emphasized as to make the 
child feel the practical advantages that result from his member- 
ship in the French nation and the honor of participation in 
her collective life. 

No less prominent in this instruction than the desire to 
promote patriotism is the purpose of making the child feel the 
superior excellence of the political institutions of the Third 
Republic. Many of the manuals contain liberal extracts from 
the "Declaration of the Rights of Man" or reproduce it in 
full, for this statement — which was a part of the Constitution 
of 1 79 1 — has since then been associated in France with political 
liberalism. The official program of studies also makes it a 
special exercise to explain the meaning of the Republican 
motto, "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." The manuals 



88 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

give many indications of the purpose of the present government 
to perpetuate its existence through the inculcation of Republi- 
can principles upon the youth. To this end, the disadvantages 
of the "old regime" of privilege and autocracy are used as 
foils for the description of the enlarged personal opportunity 
and security under the present system of political organization. 

The competition which the Third Republic has had to meet 
has not been limited to the menace of a possible return to 
monarchy, but it has included as well the perhaps more real 
menace of Socialism. Against the Socialist political theories 
the school instruction in morals and civics has carried on as 
definite a campaign as against the monarchical principle. The 
Third Republic has undertaken to tutor the youth of France 
not only in regard to what they should believe concerning 
kings, but also in regard to what might ensue upon laboring- 
class control and a radical disturbance of the existing financial 
and industrial organization of society. 

Les Enfants de Marcel. — One of the most interesting 
and widely used of the reading books for the classes in morals 
and civics is Les Enfants de Marcel, written by Mme. Fouil- 
lee under the pen name, G. Bruno. This book succeeds in weav- 
ing into a narrative of the fortunes of a French soldier and 
citizen and his family all the required materials in morals 
and civics according to the official program of studies. 

With a keen sense of dramatic values, Mme. Fouillee opens 
the story with a scene from the later days of the Franco- 
Prussian War. A French army, with all hope of victory gone, 
is trying to escape capture through reaching neutral territory 
in Switzerland. The Prussian forces are close upon the heels 
of the retreating French, and a force of the French army has 
been detailed to hold a certain position in order to delay the 
enemy long enough to allow the rest of the army to reach their 
goal of safety. Among this command is the veteran sergent 
Marcel, who is lying awake at night with his disquieting 
thoughts. Beside him is his fourteen-year-old son, Louis. The 
boy's mother had been a cantiniere of the regiment to which 
his father was attached and she had died only a few days 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 89 

before. Marcel felt that, in spite of the pleas of Louis to 
remain, he ought to be sent back home in the absence of his 
mother. Torn with personal loss and the uncertainty of his 
domestic situation, Marcel's grief is increased by the thought 
of his country's unhappy plight. 

Louis' insistence is rewarded with permission to remain and 
do what he can to serve his country in the stirring days that 
lie before them. When morning comes the engagement is 
resumed, in which both father and son exhibit the greatest 
gallantry and, with their comrades, exemplify the best tradi- 
tions of French military history. Marcel is wounded in the 
right arm and has difficulty in reaching the Swiss border, but 
this is finally accomplished, and surgical attention is secured 
for him. Amputation becomes necessary. Throughout the 
rest of the book, Marcel with his empty sleeve and an impos- 
ing collection of medals for military gallantry, is the imper- 
sonation of modest, uncomplaining self-sacrifice in the service 
of his country. 

An interesting example of Mme. Fouillee's ability to weave 
desirable information into the narrative occurs in connection 
with an incident of the enforced stay in Switzerland. Louis 
and his father find good friends in a Swiss family in which the 
old grandfather, still living, had served in the Swiss Guard 
of Louis XVI. He is led to recount the conditions which he 
had personally observed while journeying on foot to Versailles 
to enter service, and by means of his dramatic description 
the inequalities and injustices under which the peasants of the 
time suffered are exhibited in sharp contrast with the luxury 
of the Court. The old Swiss tells as an eyewitness about the 
stirring events of t'he French Revolution, having been present 
on the memorable August night when the representatives of 
the old order renounced the privileges and erased the inequali- 
ties which had come down into modern France from the 
middle ages. His narrative is a most effective treatment of 
the meaning of the French Revolution. 

When the Marcels, father and son, return to France, the 
incident is made the occasion for a passionate appreciation 



90 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

of the land of France and the old home. Marcel experiences 
the beneficent care of the government for those who have 
served their country, in being made local postmaster, with his 
eldest daughter, Annie, for his assistant. With the change to 
civil life a different set of virtues is given opportunity to come 
into prominence, and it is needless to say that the Marcel 
family, through the practice of industry, honesty, devotion 
to duty, neighborly sympathy, sobriety, civic interest, and 
family affection, experience a high degree of happiness and a 
moderate degree of economic prosperity. The writer of the 
story uses neighborhood incidents to serve as introductions to 
fairly comprehensive descriptions of the various aspects of 
civil government. An accident in a quarry, for example, serves 
as a peg on which to hang the account of communal govern- 
ment and its relation to the administration of the department; 
the trial of a thief, apprehended through the coolness and 
courage of Louis and Marcel, is the occasion for the description 
of the judicial machinery of France; and in like manner all 
the important aspects of civil administration are covered. 
Finally, the receipt of a legacy in Algeria causes the family 
of Marcel to remove to this French colony and opens the way 
for a description of the colonial system of France and a lively 
appreciation of its importance for the mother country. 

At times the machinery of the narrative creaks a bit and 
sometimes the patriotic sentiment seems a bit forced, but in 
general the little book is extremely vivid and convincing, and 
one would expect it to make a strong impression upon a young 
and uncritical reader. It is described here at such length 
because it so well illustrates the distinctive quality of morals 
as conceived from the French educational standpoint and the 
purpose of civics as a school subject. Morality in the French 
primary curriculum is not taught as an abstract philosophy of 
elementary grade, but it is tied up, through illustrative his- 
torical incidents and concrete personal experiences, with the 
everyday life of the child. In reality it is an elementary treat- 
ment of political philosophy in which the child is considered 
as an actor in the destinies of the nation and as an apprecia- 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 91 

tive and responsible participant in a set of domestic and po- 
litical relationships. It is difficult to estimate the success of 
the method, but it has been in use for forty years and is likely 
to be continued for a long time to come. No doubt the con- 
stancy and solidarity of the French during the late war had 
other contributing sources, some of them probably more im- 
portant than the instruction which the French children for a 
generation past have had in civic virtues. Many French edu- 
cators believe, however, that the moral and civic instruction 
in the schools has made an important contribution towards 
national unity and national devotedness. 

History in the Primary Schools. — While the moral and 
civic instruction was particularly designed to engender civic 
virtues and patriotism, French history, as included in the cur- 
riculum given in the Law of 1882, was likewise intended to 
strengthen the child's affection for his country. By means of 
this study, the child was to be made familiar with the great 
names and the significant events of the national past. He was 
to be made to feel a personal sorrow in the misfortunes of his 
fatherland and to take pride in the heroism of earlier genera- 
tions. At the same time, aberrations of national policy were 
to be acknowledged and national failings were to be recognized 
so that they might be guarded against in the future. The 
general principle that the evolution of the French nation was 
toward better things was accepted as basic, and national weak- 
nesses or temporary failures were to be interpreted as episodes 
in a triumphant drama of national self-realization. 

The spirit of the instruction in history was to be neither 
that of muck-raking nor ot chauvinism. Perhaps it might be 
described as a scientific attitude modified by patriotism. There 
was no doubt as to the purpose of the instruction in history: 
it was to make better citizens as the children were made 
familiar with the national past presented in such a way as to 
arouse their enthusiasm, pride, and loyalty. But that past 
was also to be presented in such a way as admitted imperfec- 
tion, failure, and selfishness, and revealed national weaknesses 
of temperament or of policy. The work in history was to 



92 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

strengthen the child's love of his country, but no less to 
develop his critical sense in the judgment of national policy, 
foreign or domestic.^ At the same time the stern realities of 
the international situation were not to be forgotten. The chil- 
dren in the primary schools might well enough be called on 
to engage in a war for the nation's safety before they reached 
maturity or had passed beyond the age of military service. In 
that event they must be prepared to face the thought of war, 
with its attendant self-sacrifice, and they must be instructed 
in the French tradition of courage, loyalty, and national pride. 

Centralization of Educational Administration 

The Organic Primary Education Law of 1886. — The 
third of the great primary education laws passed in the 
eighties, namely, that of October 30, 1886, remains the organic 
law governing primary education in France. It should be 
considered in connection with a law passed February 27, 1880, 
by which the composition of the Superior Council of Public 
Instruction and the academy councils was modified. The dis- 
cussion of the educational machinery developed under the 
Third Republic naturally connects with that of the institutions 
bequeathed to the Republic from the Second Empire. We have 
noted in an earlier connection (see p. 75) the high degree of 
centralization of power over education in the hands of one man 
which the laws of the Second Empire achieved, the place of 
advantage given to the Church, and the very special status 
of private education. The treatment of these same matters 
by the new government may with profit be discussed if we are 
to gain a fair understanding of educational administration in 
France at the present time. 

In regard to centralization of educational authority, that 
principle has been adopted by the Republic, but with impor- 
tant modifications of its application as found under Napoleon 
III. The hierarchy of the Second Empire was perpetuated in 
the education laws of the eighties and the state continued to 
^ See Pizard, L'histoire dans I'enscignement primaire, pp. 91 ff. 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 93 

maintain that absolute control over the local authorities which 
had been developed to such a high point. The Minister of Pub- 
lic Instruction retained his large powers of appointment in the 
fields of higher, secondary, and primary education and the 
prefect retained the power of appointment of primary teachers 
which he had been given by the Law of 1854. The effective 
system of inspection which had been elaborated under Napo- 
leon III was retained and strengthened. The organization of 
the academies was taken over practically without change. 
The departmental council of education, which has jurisdiction 
over a comparatively large area, was made in effect the local 
authority for primary education and was given many powers 
in that field, such as the determination of the number of 
schools and teachers required by any commune, the deciding 
voice in any consolidation proposal, the preparation of the list 
of teachers eligible for appointment, the decision in matters 
of litigation affecting primary instructors both private and 
public, and the opening of private primary schools. 

In short one may say that education was organized under the 
Third Republic on national lines and as a single unit. From the 
Minister of Public Instruction and the Superior Council down 
to the communal council and the communal teacher, the entire 
system was bound together in a graduated hierarchy of powers 
and controls which enforced upon all grades of education a 
uniform purpose, uniform conditions of exercise, and uniform 
privileges and safeguards. Education was regarded as an 
important social function, on a par with the army and navy and 
the police power in its national significance. Its problems 
were conceived from a single national point of view. Its 
administration was organized as a single national unit. The 
result has been the most highly centralized school system 
developed in any first rate Western nation. Local initiative 
in school affairs has dwindled to a disappearing minimum, while 
central authority has assumed a maximum of importance and 
influence. 

It may be seen from the nbove paragraph that the develop- 
ments of educational administration which took place under 



94 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

the Second Empire have proved to be in accord with French 
tastes and inclinations or, at any rate, with the exigencies 
of the political situation, and that the absolute control 
which that government assumed has been taken over without 
any weakening by the Third Republic. There is, however, a 
very important difference between the two educational regimes. 
Whereas the laws of the Second Empire removed all restric- 
tions upon the absolute exercise of authority by the Emperor 
and his agents and gave them personal control over the edu- 
cational institutions of all grades, the Third Republic has 
thrown many and important safeguards around the exercise of 
authority and has provided means whereby the public will 
may be discovered and enforced. 

The Superior Council. — The means whereby this safe- 
guard against tyranny or caprice was established, center largely 
in the composition of the various educational councils and the 
powers which they exercise over the executives who depend on 
them for advice and permission to act. We have seen how 
Napoleon III made a rubber stamp of the Superior Council 
and removed practically all the control which it had formerly 
exercised over the acts of the Minister of Public Instruction. 
The law of February 27, 1880, reinstated the Superior Coun- 
cil in a position of power over the Minister and made of it a 
body truly representative of French educational opinion. At 
present the members of this council number fifty-seven. Of 
these, thirteen are appointed by the President of the Republic, 
nine representing public and four representing private instruc- 
tion. The remaining members are chosen from among the 
important educational interests and institutions by their col- 
leagues. The representation on the Superior Council is strictly 
educational and distributed in such a way as to insure the 
presence on the Council of a representative competent to speak 
sympathetically and intelligently for practically any educa- 
tional interest that may come before it. Its advice must be 
sought by the IVIinister on courses of study, methods of teach- 
ing, examinations, disciplinary and administrative regulations 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 95 

affecting public schools of all grades, the regulations governing 
the examinations for degrees and the granting of the same, the 
regulations for the inspection of private schools, the inter-; 
diction of school texts on the basis of their being contrary to 
good morals, the Constitution, and the laws, and other matters 
besides. It also possesses important judicial functions in con- 
nection with appeals in cases of discipline brought up to it 
from the lower councils. A favorable two-thirds vote of the 
Council is required before any regular professor of public 
secondary or higher instruction can be dismissed or suspended, 
before any regular professor of higher education can be re- 
moved to an inferior position, before any person may be 
excluded from the right of teaching in or directing a public 
or private school, or before a student may be expelled from a 
public or private school. These extensive powers given to 
the Superior Council constitute a very real check upon the will 
of the Minister. It was just the absence of any such safe- 
guards that meant unrelieved autocracy under the regime of 
Napoleon III. It is their presence that means centralized 
administrative efficiency without absolute tyranny under the 
Third Republic. 

A further safeguard against too extensive ministerial pre- 
rogatives is discovered in the very definite prescriptions of 
eligibility for the various teaching positions filled by the 
Minister. The details of academic training and experience, 
the possession of certain degrees, the careful, almost minute, 
classification of teachers, are conditions which the Minister is 
bound to take into account in his appointments to vacancies. 
The teacher in the public secondary and higher institutions, 
as well as the primary teacher, is a public official, fortified in 
his position, as far as may be, against injustice and personal 
spite. 

It is needless to add that the office of the Minister of Public 
Instruction is adequately organized to fulfill the numerous func- 
tions which it performs. Directly under the Minister are 
twenty-five bureaus dealing in a specialized way with the 



96 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

business of all grades of education and fine arts, while a large 
number of general inspectors serve as the eyes and ears of 
the central education authority and represent it directly in the 
country at large. 

The Administration of the Academy. — The academy 
administration was taken over without any considerable change 
from the Second Empire. There are at present seventeen 
academies in France, each with a rector at its head and pos- 
sessing a council which has much the same duties with refer- 
ence to the rector that the Superior Council has with reference 
to the Minister of Public Instruction. In addition there is a 
University Council which advises him with reference to matters 
of higher education alone. In the case of the Acadeipy Coun- 
cil we find again a very ample representation of all the higher 
educational interests of the academy and a combination of 
ex officio, elective, and appointive memberships which makes 
the Academy Council much more than the creature of the 
government. 

The rector is the head of higher, secondary, and primary 
education in the academy, but most of his activities in regard 
to primary education are delegated to the academy inspector 
and are limited to the pedagogical side. Indeed, the chief 
educational interest of the rector is secondary education, al- 
though this interest is shared with higher and primary educa- 
tion as well. The rector touches primary education mainly 
through his connection with the normal schools, of which he has 
special charge. He is also ex officio president of the governing 
board of each lycee and college in his academy. 

Departmental Administration.— The Law of 1886 made 
the department — of which there are ninety in France — the 
chief administrative area for primary education. The prefect, 
who is an official of the Ministry of the Interior, is also the 
chief educational officer. He appoints all public primary 
teachers, although in his choice of candidates he is limited to 
those nominated by the academy inspector. The chief influ- 
ence of the prefect is felt in connection with school finances, 
over which he exercises considerable control. His connection 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 97 

with matters of curriculum and methods in the primary schools 
is negligible. In the case of the Departmental Council we 
recognize again the admirable principle of selection of members 
which is characteristic of the educational councils under the 
Republic. Of the fourteen regular members of each council, 
the prefect and the academy inspector are ex officio president 
and vice-president, respectively, four are elected by the primary 
teachers from among their members, four are members of the 
General Council of the Department — chosen by their col- 
leagues — two are appointed by the Minister from among the 
primary inspectors and two are ex officio heads of the normal 
schools of the department. This council, as has been said 
above, is really the local authority for primary education, as 
the Academy Council is the local authority for secondary and 
higher education. Its most important functions have been 
mentioned above (see p. 93). The powers of the academy 
inspector over primary education are very great, particularly 
as affecting the choice of teachers. He personally supervises 
the examinations of candidates for entrance to the normal 
schools and the examinations given at the close of the normal 
school course. In this way he has great control over the list 
of probationary teachers, who must serve two years before they 
are eligible to permanent appointment. It is only when a 
teacher has thus been approved and placed on the depart- 
mental list that he is eligible to appointment by the prefect. 
Other Local Authorities. — The school committees {com- 
missions scolaires) have been mentioned in connection with 
the Law of 1882, and the cantonal delegates may be considered 
as retaining under the Law of 1886 their former functions. 
The municipal councils, which have educational as well as 
other civil functions, have little educational authority. They 
are compelled to provide funds 10 meet the obligatory expenses 
connected with primary education, and they may increase this 
minimum to any extent for which they can secure popular ap- 
proval. We shall take up their share of the total expense of 
primary education in connection with a later discussion of the 
financial law of 1889. 



98 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

The Curtailment of the Educational Influence of the 
Church. — We have already mentioned the complications of 
politics which placed the Republican party squarely in oppo- 
sition to the Catholic Church and have recalled the decisive 
victory gained by the Republicans over the Monarchist and 
Church party in and following 1877. It is but natural to 
expect that the Republicans would make use of their newly- 
won power to weaken the extremely great influence wielded by 
the Church over education through the laws of the Second 
Empire. The first notable development in this struggle was 
the practical elimination of the Church representatives from 
the various councils of education. Only two ecclesiastical 
members out of a total of fifty-seven were provided for the 
Superior Council and in the academy councils the only eccle- 
siastical representatives were the heads of the Catholic and 
the Reformed Church theological seminaries. The influence 
of the Church was completely eliminated from the depart- 
mental councils and the local cure was no longer named as 
the inspector of the schools of the commune. We have already 
noted the laicization of the curriculum, accomplished by the 
Law of 1882. The Law of 1886 made any member of a relig- 
ious association ineligible as a teacher in a public school. 
It also established a uniform requirement for the state's cer- 
tificate of eligibility to teach in any school, public or private, 
and removed the chances of collusion in the granting of such 
certificates by bringing the entire matter of teacher examina- 
tion and certification under the authority of the rector and 
the academy inspector. Equally important is the requirement 
of the Law of 1886 that every commune, either alone or in 
conjunction with another adjoining, shall have a public pri- 
mary school. For this purpose, unlike the case in the Law of 
1850, a private school cannot be designated by the commune. 

Private Schools. — As the status of private schools relates 
closely to the influence of the Church in French education, 
the conditions of private instruction deserve consideration at 
this point. The Law of 1886 did not forbid private schools, 
but it considerably restricted the freedom with which they 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 99 

might be opened. We have seen how in the Law of 1850 the 
bars were let down and the opening of private schools, primary 
and secondary, was made easy. The new law, on the contrary^ 
established very effective safeguards about the private schools. 
The procedure in opening a private primary school is as 
follows: The teacher who wishes to open such a school must 
declare beforehand his intention to the mayor of the commune 
in which he wishes to teach and designate the premises which 
are to be occupied. A notice of this intention is posted on 
the door of the town hall for one month. The mayor may 
oppose the opening of the school on the ground of unsatis- 
factory premises. The petition is likewise addressed to the 
prefect, the academy inspector, and the public prosecutor, and 
attached to it for the academy inspector are the applicant's 
birth certificate, health certificate, his teaching certificate or 
diplomas, a copy of his court record, a statement of the places 
where he has lived during the preceding ten years and the 
callings he has followed in that time, the plan of the proposed 
school premises, and, if he belongs to a religious association, 
a copy of the statutes of that association. The academy 
inspector, either ex officio or on complaint of the public prose- 
cutor, may oppose the opening of the school on moral or hy- 
gienic grounds. When there is no opposition, the school is 
opened at the expiration of a month without other formality. 
In case of opposition, both sides are heard by the Depart- 
mental Council, and appeal may be made by either party to the 
Superior Council, which has final jurisdiction. Opening or 
conducting a school without having fulfilled the conditions 
named is a misdemeanor and is subject to punishment by a 
fine. A second offense makes the offender subject to impris- 
onment and a heavier fine. 

The directors of private schools in France today are alto- 
gether free in the choice of methods, programs, and books, 
with a reservation in regard to those books which have been 
prohibited by the Superior Council as contrary to good morals, 
the Constitution, and the laws. Any private teacher may, on 
complaint of the academy inspector, be summoned before the 



100 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

Departmental Council by reason of grave fault in the exercise 
of his duties or misconduct or immorality, and he may be 
censured or suspended by that body. In case of suspension 
he has the right of appeal to the Superior Council. The state 
reserves full right of inspection of all private schools with 
reference to morality and hygiene. Its inspection of instruc- 
tion goes only so far as to see that it is not contrary to good 
morals, the Constitution, and the laws. When one recalls, 
however, that most of the private schools were before the 
passage of the Law of 1904 maintained by the Church inter- 
ests, and that the clerical party was on principle opposed to 
the Constitution of the Third Republic, this provision means 
a great deal more than it might seem to on the surface. 

Private Secondary Schools. — The provisions of the Law 
of 1850 in regard to private secondary education were carried 
over without change into the Third Republic. Private sec- 
ondary schools have full legal rights of existence and self- 
government according to the terms of the law as described 
above (see p. 69). The change of composition of the Su- 
perior and the Academy Council under the Republic less- 
ened the influence of the Church in matters relating to secon- 
dary education just as it had in those relating to primary 
education. 

Recent Curtailment of Church Influence in Education. 
— A series of incidents, centering about the court-martial and 
conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jew, of the crime of selling 
military secrets to Germany, raised in the nineties a storm of 
popular agitation. The Church and the Monarchists were 
allied in opposition to the Republicans and the Jews, who 
asserted the innocence of the convicted officer. Dreyfus was 
convicted and sentenced in 1894. In 1897, his case was re- 
opened and it was found that the true culprit was an avowed 
Monarchist. The military court decided for a second time 
against Dreyfus, but then Emile Zola made a truly national 
issue of the scandal through a fulminating article against all 
those who had had a part in the trials of Dreyfus. Confession 
of one of the Monarchist principals caused the case again to 



NATIONAL EDUCATION loi 

be reopened in 1899. The case was finally settled by action 
of the Supreme Court in 1906, which unconditionally exoner- 
ated Dreyfus and restored him to his position in the army. 

This case was of national importance and caused, as has 
been said above, a thoroughgoing cleavage of political parties. 
Upon the triumph of the Dreyfusard party, drastic reprisals 
were made upon the Church, which had been found guilty, in 
the judgment of its enemies, of plotting against the Republic. 
By the Associations Act of 1901 religious orders were com- 
pelled to secure governmental authorization, which the govern- 
ment only very sparingly granted. As the law provided that 
no member of an unauthorized order should be permitted to 
teach in any French school, it had the effect of immediately 
and greatly reducing the number of religious engaged in teach- 
ing in private schools. The law of July 7, 1904, eliminated 
the official church and religious associations from the schools 
of France. According to its provisions, no member of a relig- 
ious association, whether authorized or unauthorized, was to 
be allowed to engage in the work of teaching. All religious 
associations with the title of "religious associations exclusively 
devoted to teaching" were to be suppressed by 19 14. The 
final acts in the carrying out of the law were somewhat inter- 
fered with by the outbreak of the war in 1914, but there has 
not developed any intention on the part of the government of 
receding from the position taken in the law. The legal restric- 
tions placed upon private education and the elimination of the 
official church from teaching have resulted in greatly lessening 
the number of private schools in France. 

Financial Support of Primary Education. — The law of 
July 19, 1889, relating to the financial support of public 
primary education and the salaries of the educational staff, 
is the last of the four "Ferry" laws, named above as being 
most influential in establishing the French national system of 
primary education. In some respects it represents more sig- 
nificantly than any of the others the extension of the national 
interest in the primary schools, for by its provisions the 
nation made itself responsible for the salaries of all members 



102 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATIQN SINCE 1789 

of the teaching force and the administrative 'staff connected 
with primary education. Ever since 1833, the communes, the 
departments, and the state had cooperated, where necessary, 
in the support of the public primary schools, and this arrange- 
ment has essentially continued, with the difference that the 
state has taken over directly a greater share of the total cost. 
According to the law, the following costs v^ere to be charged 
to the state: the salaries of members of th^ staff of ecoles 
maternelles, elementary primary schools, higher primary 
schools, ecoles manuelles d'apprentissage, and normal schools, 
the salaries of members of the administrative and supervisory 
force, the expenses of inspection, and the maintenance charges 
of all pupils in the normal schools. The following costs were 
designated to be borne by the departments: an allowance for 
the primary inspectors; the maintenance and rental, if any, of 
the normal schools; the maintenance and the renewal of the 
furniture of those schools and of the school supplies; the 
rental and upkeep of the departmental offices of public instruc- 
tion and that of the academy inspector; and certain other 
minor charges. The communes were to be charged with the 
maintenance and rental, if any, of the school premises and the 
living quarters for the teachers, the expense of heating and 
lighting of classrooms, the costs of janitorial service, and the 
purchase, the maintenance, and the renewal of school furniture 
and supplies. 

In the same law careful classification was made of teachers 
on the basis of professional qualifications and length of service, 
and salary schedules were adopted to apply to the various 
classes of teachers and officials. As a result the salaries of 
teachers in the primary schools and of education officials do 
not depend upon local conditions of wealth or the liberality 
of various local authorities, but upon professional equipment 
and experience. The law also favorably modified the existing 
provision for retirement allowances. 

Secondary Education. — The Third Republic, as has been 
implied or specifically stated earlier in this chapter, exhibits 
the same high degree of centralization with reference to secon- 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 103 

dary instruction as it does with reference to primary. The two 
forms of secondary school are the lycecs, maintained entirely 
by the state, and the colleges, maintained principally by the 
communes in which they are located, but receiving some aid 
from the state and possibly from the department. In the 
case of both forms of school, however, the Ministry of Public 
Instruction prescribes uniform programs of study, uniform 
disciplinary regulations, and uniform requirements for the 
teaching staff. The teachers in both types of school are ap- 
pointed by the Minister of Public Instruction and are equally 
the civil servants of the state. 

The seven years of the course in a secondary school lead to 
the examination for the baccalaureate, which dominates all 
secondary school work. The examinations are conducted 
under the control of the Minister of Public Instruction and are 
held at the university centers at which there are faculties of 
arts and sciences. The Minister also grants the diplomas 
awarded to the successful candidates. No less than the state 
schools, the private secondary schools are governed by this 
examination in the arrangement of their programs of study 
and in their standards of instruction, for their students must 
pass the state examination in order to secure the privileges of 
the baccalaureate. Without the baccalaureate no student is 
eligible to follow higher and professional studies in the uni- 
versities. The baccalaureate may be regarded both as a 
certification of the fact that the holder has had a general 
education and as a permit to undertake university work. 

Quite in contrast with the conditions existing in the Ameri- 
can high school, one can tell within a narrow range what studies 
any possessor of the French baccalaureate may have had. The 
program of studies of May 31, 1902, which is now in force, 
divides the seven-year course into two cycles. In the first 
cycle of four years the student may elect the work of the first 
section, in which the classical languages are stressed ; or that of 
the second section, in which Latin and Greek are absent, and in 
which French, science, drawing and mathematics are empha- 
sized. The second cycle offers four groups of courses in which 



104 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

the following subjects receive emphasis respectively: (i) Latin 
and Greek, (2) Latin and modern languages, (3) Latin and 
sciences, (4) modern languages and sciences, without Latin. 
If one knows what section and group of each cycle the student 
has elected in his secondary school, in whatever part of France, 
one can count on that pupil's having had a very specific range 
of instruction. In other words, the French organization of 
secondary instruction provides a highly uniform culture for 
its educated class. Its leaders of opinion will have experienced 
practically the same conditions of discipline, subject matter, 
and instruction. While some of the pupils will have had 
instruction in the classics and others will not, and while some 
will have spent more time on science, mathematics, and modern 
languages than others, no pupil can follow the official seven- 
year program of studies leading to the baccalaureate without 
having had some acquaintance with all the significant aspects 
of modern culture. All will have had elementary mathematics, 
all will have had at least one foreign language, all will have 
spent an equal amount of time in the study of modern history 
and of geography, all will have been made acquainted with the 
main facts and principles of the sciences, and all will have 
spent practically an equal amount of time in the study of the 
French language and its literature. The French system of 
secondary education represents probably the highest achieve- 
ment of a standardized culture for the leading educated class 
that exists in any modern Western land. 

Secondary Education for Girls. — The Third RepubHc 
established by a law of December 21, 1880, a system of 
secondary education for girls. The new girls' schools were 
of two sorts, lycees and colleges, following the terminology 
of the secondary schools for boys but having only a five 
years' course. They were, however, exclusively day schools, 
but boarding departments might be attached at the expense 
of the principal or the municipality.^ 

Higher Education. — The mobilization of the intellectual 

^ For more complete discussion of secondary education for girls see 
Farrington, French Secondary Schools, pp. 309-344. 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 105 

forces of the state which was consciously aimed at by the 
Third Republic, was carried out in the field of higher educa- 
tion by the establishment in 1885, in each academy center, 
of a General Council of Faculties. The function of this coun- 
cil was to consider the common interests of the faculties of 
the academy and to organize programs of courses and lectures. 
In 1896, the faculties were given the name of universities and 
the name of the Genera;l Council of Faculties was changed to 
that of University Council. This council was given power 
over the discipline and internal organization of its university. 
By this law of 1896 the universities acquired corporate exis- 
tence, with the right of possessing and administering property, 
of disciplining any of its members, of receiving student fees 
for the uses of the university and of controlling their own 
budgets. The professors of the universities are appointed by 
the Minister of Public Instruction, on nomination of at least 
two candidates by the faculty in which the vacancy exists. 
The professors are safeguarded in their positions by minute 
regulations and they have the pension privileges of all civil 
servants. The state pays the salaries of the entire university 
staff and grants a liberal subsidy for maintenance. The facul- 
ties elect their own deans, the appointment of whom is ratified 
by the Minister. 

A law of ]\Iarch 18, 1880, extended the principle of freedom 
of teaching to higher education. This had been a bone of 
contention even since the Charter of 1830, which promised free- 
dom of teaching. We have seen (p. 61) how the provision 
of the Charter was never carried out with reference to higher 
education. Indeed, no change was made from the status of 
higher education under the university monopoly of the First 
Empire, until 1880. At that time, the right of establishing 
private, or "free," faculties was given; but the right was re- 
served to the state to grant degrees. Any student in a private 
faculty must observe the same rules of study and present the 
same academic requirements as students in the state univer- 
sities and must submit to examination by the professors of 
the state universities. 



io6 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 



Vocational Education and the Higher Primary School 

In describing a matter so complex as a national system of 
education, cross-classifications are inevitable. It would have 
been desirable from some standpoints to treat the higher pri- 
mary schools in connection with primary education. Our 
earlier treatment of the primary school, however, was in con- 
nection with the realization of a national system of public edu- 
cation and there mainly as an aspect of centralization of 
control. A no less important aspect of national education is 
the effort made by a modern state to cause its educational 
institutions to minister to the health and prosperity of its 
economic life. The type organization around which the 
French development of vocational education has taken place 
is the higher primary school. 

The higher primary school will be recalled in connection with 
the Law of 1833 (see p. 55). It was not mentioned as such 
in the Law of 1850, although complementary courses in advance 
of the minimum for primary schools were allowed in any 
commune which cared to bear the expense of them. In 1833, 
Guizot had thought of the higher primary schools as a natural 
and necessary extension of educational opportunities for the 
lower social classes. While the instruction to be given in them 
was practically related to the needs of everyday life, it was 
not highly technical. It was even considered advisable and 
proper that the higher primary instruction should be connected 
with the weaker secondary schools. However, in the period 
of the Second Empire, during which very pronounced industrial 
development occurred, the character of the instruction given 
in the complementary courses tended to become more defi- 
nitely vocational. Under the Third Republic the higher pri- 
mary school has been regarded as a school preparing the picked 
children of the elementary primary schools for more effective 
participation in industrial, agricultural, and commercial life, 
to the end that the nation may be better fitted for successful 
economic competition with other industrial nations. The 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 107 

higher primary school was revived in the organic law of 1886 
and was mentioned in that law, along with infant schools, 
infant classes, elementary primary schools, cours complhnen- 
taires, and manual apprenticeship schools, as an establishment 
of primary education. The manual apprenticeship schools 
(ecoles manuelles d'apprentissage) had been established by a 
law of December 11, 1880. This law took account of an 
existing situation when it said, "The schools of apprenticeship 
founded by communes or departments to develop in the youth 
who expects to enter manual trades, the necessary skill and 
technical knowledge, are placed in the number of establish- 
ments of public primary education. The public schools giving 
supplementary primary instruction, the programs of which 
include vocational studies, are designated as manual appren- 
ticeship schools." Such schools were allowed to receive sub- 
ventions from the Ministry of Public Instruction and the 
Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce. In 1881 and 1882 
three schools under the name of national vocational schools 
{ecoles nationales projessionelles) were legally established for 
the purpose of training foremen and artisans. 

It is seen that the Third Republic, early in its existence, 
recognized the national importance of stimulating the produc- 
tion of better trained privates and non-commissioned officers 
for her industrial army. This aspect of national strength has 
not been developed in France to the point which it has reached 
in Germany, but, compared with American practice, France has 
made conspicuous progress in this form of education. The 
higher primary school may be taken as the central point 
around which vocational education is organized, and the 
school from which special vocational schools vary and to which 
they approximate in character. 

The cours complementaire is less fully organized than the 
higher primary school proper, but, like the latter, it aims at 
taking the pupil from the elementary primary school and pre- 
paring him for more efficient entrance to a gainful occupation. 
The higher primary school proper was not at first highly 
specialized for vocational training, although the official pro- 



io8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

gram stressed applied science, mathematics, and drawing, be- 
sides giving extended instruction in the social subjects of the 
elementary curriculum. The local authorities were encouraged 
to modify the curricula of the higher primary schools in such 
ways as favored the predominant vocational interest of the 
community. Thus, in some cases the higher primary school 
offered courses fitting for agricultural life, in others for indus- 
trial occupations, and in still others for commercial life, while 
the courses for girls clearly and definitely reflected the voca- 
tional or domestic needs of their sex. 

The tendency has been for some higher primary schools to 
become more highly specialized than others in vocational train- 
ing, and there has thus come about the definitive division of 
the schools on the basis of curriculum. The higher primary 
schools that showed marked vocational emphasis were desig- 
nated in 1897 as ecolcs pratiques de commerce ou d'industrie 
and placed under the control of the Ministry of Commerce and 
Industry. The manual apprenticeship schools also in large 
part were assimilated to this type and placed under the man- 
agement of the one ministry, namely, of Commerce and Indus- 
try. However, some of the former manual apprenticeship 
schools remain under the condominium of the Minister of 
Education and the Minister of Com.merce and Industry. The 
schools which stress the general intellectual side of the cur- 
riculum are under the exclusive control of the Minister of 
Education. 

The complaint has been rather general that the higher 
primary schools proper were not connecting up with the com- 
mercial, agricultural, industrial, and household needs of the 
state. They were turning out too many lower state officials 
and clerks and were not in sufficient degree training the boys 
to be farmers, foremen, and skilled artisans, nor the girls to 
be efficient housewives. Accordingly a decree of July 26, 
1909, established sections of vocational instruction alongside 
of the sections of general instruction in every such school and 
provided for practical work closely related to the theory 
taught. However, the iiitention of the government is not to 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 109 

make these higher primary schools narrowly vocational. The 
Director of Primary Education, M. Gasquet, in explaining the 
intention of the decree mentioned above, said that it was not 
the purpose of these schools to form apprentices or specialists 
fit immediately to be utilized in commerce or industry. Rather 
they were to reveal the child to himself, to give him a taste 
for work with the hands and to make him familiar with the 
tools of every trade. They were to prepare the boy, by reason 
of thorough preparation in theory and principles, to become, 
after a period of apprenticeship in industry, commerce, or 
agriculture, an under-officer susceptible of improvement and 
capable of adapting himself to the various and ever-changing 
needs of vocational life.^ 

It is hopeless to undertake in this connection a description 
of the rich provision which has been made in France through 
the cooperation of state and local authorities and private 
parties and associations for all forms and grades of vocational 
education. It is probably no exaggeration to say that no 
aspect of vocational efficiency is unprovided for in an appro- 
priate educational institution, although, of course, for some 
phases the distribution is unequal and inadequate. A full 
catalogue of such institutions would embrace maritime schools 
of every grade, schools of public works, schools of mines, in- 
dustrial schools of every kind, special and general, higher^and 
lower, technical and practical, schools of agriculture ranging 
from the farm-schools to the National Institute of Agronomy, 
veterinary schools, and schools of fine arts that bear a very 
definite relationship to the high artistic quality of the product 
of the French factories and shops. 

The Continuation Education Bill of March 12, 1917. — 
We have been considering at some length the development of 
the national system of education in France under the Third 
Republic, and it seems appropriate to conclude that topic 
with mention of a bill introduced in the Chamber of Deputies 
during the late war, on March 12, 191 7. This bill has not 
become law and may not for some time to come. It represents, 
^ See Vuibert, Anniiaire de la jeunesse, 1917, p. 52. 



no NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

however, the promise of a most significant extension of the 
educational activities of the state and may be considered as 
a proposal to lift national education to a higher level all along 
the line. The bill proposed continuation instruction for all 
boys and girls who cannot show that they have taken or are 
taking an equivalent for the same, in physical exercises, voca- 
tional subjects, and subjects of general culture. The period 
of compulsory attendance is to be extended beyond the re- 
quirements of the Law of 1882 to the age of twenty for boys 
and eighteen for girls. This time is divided into two periods. 
The first period, extending to the age of seventeen for boys 
and sixteen for girls, calls for a minimum of three hundred 
hours a year, to be divided as follows: fifty hours for general 
education, one hundred fifty hours for vocational education, 
and one hundred hours for physical exercise. The courses and 
exercises of general and vocational nature are to be given 
during the legal working day and the physical exercises on 
Sunday. The second period, extending from the age of seven- 
teen to the age of twenty for boys, and from the age of six- 
teen to the age of eighteen for girls, calls for a minimum of 
two hundred hours. Marriage exempts from further attend- 
ance. Of this total one hundred hours of instruction are to 
be given to both boys and girls in subjects of general culture, 
such as French, history, geography, and civics, with household 
economy for the girls. The second hundred hours are to be 
devoted, in the case of boys, to physical and military exer- 
cises and, in the case of girls, to handwork, lessons and exer- 
cises in hygiene, practical medicine, and the care of children. 
Pupils in schools giving courses the equivalent of the higher 
section of the elementary primary schools are considered as 
satisfying the conditions of the bill; but in case they leave 
such school before the age of eighteen, they will be expected 
to attend the continuation courses. This form of education 
is shown to be considered as an aspect of primary education 
by reason of the fact that it is gratuitous. 

This interesting bill has not become law at the present writ- 
ing and it may be that the financial difficulties following the 



NATIONAL EDUCATION iii 

war may delay its passage for some time. But judging from 
the extension of the educational facilities provided for the 
youth of France during the history of the Third Republic, 
it is not too much to expect that steps will eventually be taken 
to expand, by means of post-adolescent part-time instruction, 
the necessarily limited acquisitions of the pupil in the elemen- 
tary primary school. 

Democracy in Education under the Third Republic 

The government of the Third Republic is representative of 
all the people, being based on a system of universal suffrage. 
The utmost freedom of thought, press, and discussion is legally 
safeguarded, and the principle of freedom of teaching, with 
the exception of the case of religious congregations, is recog- 
nized by law. Every Frenchman before the law is as good as 
any other, and the social and political inequalities of the Old 
Regime or of the governments immediately following the First 
Republic have no legal existence in France today. However, 
the government of France feels the direct influence of the 
popular suffrage much less than does the government of the 
United States. The government of France is truly a repre- 
sentative government. The people exercise their power 
through the election of representatives who themselves consti- 
tute the government. Thus the people elect directly the mem- 
bers of the municipal and departmental councils and the 
Chamber of Deputies, and indirectly the Senate. No direct 
popular vote is cast for any judicial or administrative officer. 
The prefects are appointed by the central government; the 
President of the Republic is elected by the two houses of the 
National Assembly. The Ministry stands or falls on the vote 
of the legislative body. The central government is a highly 
organized bureaucracy with powers extending down into the 
minutiae of local administration. We have observed the organi- 
zation of the educational system in France, which may be 
taken as typical of the entire administration. The government 
is thus seen to be considerably removed from direct control 



112 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

of the people. Furthermore, in practice, the bourgeoisie con- 
trol the government. Almost without exception, the members 
of the legislative body are capitalists, landowners, or profes- 
sional men, and the baccalaureate is the prerequisite of a 
professional or official career. 

In spite of the absence of any legal definitions of social 
status, there are clearly defined social classes in France. The 
producers — those who work with their hands — constitute a 
class which is at the bottom of the social scale. There is a 
social stigma attached among the French to manual labor as 
it is considered to be servile and, in some sense, degrading. 
Those persons who earn their living in the manual trades or 
industries or in agriculture recognize their social inferiority. 
In many cases it is the ambition of a workingman to raise his 
son to one of the sub-classes of the bourgeoisie. 

The Bourgeoisie. — The bourgeoisie is described by M. 
Guerard ^ as comprising anyone who wears decent clothes and 
uses decent French. It includes everyone in France today 
above the toilers, for a bourgeois is essentially a capitalist, 
v/hether titled or not. The bourgeoisie is divided into lower, 
middle, and upper, and includes all grades of occupation and 
conditions of wealth from the small shopkeeper to the profes- 
sional classes and the great bankers and captains of commerce 
and industry. There remains, as well, the social distinction 
of noble descent. "The social line between smock-frocks and 
frock-coats is much sharper than in America, where many a 
wealthy man remembers his blue-jean days." And yet, while 
not so rapid as in America, transition from one social class to 
another is possible. The process of change of social status 
occurs in terms of generations, while with us it is likely to 
take place within the lifetime of a single individual, aided 
mainly by his own gifts and energy. 

Class Division of Schools. — The relationship of the 
French system of education to these underlying and condi- 
tioning facts of the nation's social and political hfe, is very 

'See Guerard, French Civilization in the Nineteenth Century, p. 176. 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 113 

clear. The schools are, practically speaking, divided under 
the Third Republic according to class distinctions. No mem- 
bers of a class above the lower bourgeoisie will avail them- 
selves of free education for their children. They regard it as 
diminishing their self-importance to have their children mingle 
indiscriminately with the crowd of children which the oppor- 
tunity of free education will attract. Primary education means 
free education. It draws its clientele mainly from the laboring 
classes, and to a certain extent from the petite bourgeoisie. 
The great mass of French children attend the primary schools. 
Social classifications in France are so stable that the primary 
system of education is provided for a group of children that 
will occupy practically the same social position as their 
parents. It is not expected that this group will furnish the 
future leaders of public opinion to any extent worth consider- 
ing. Accordingly, the French system is not organized with 
the expectation of revealing or developing in the primary school 
pupil those qualities and abilities that deserve opportunity for 
further growth and expansion through higher studies. Rather 
is he schooled in certain classes of information and in social 
attitudes. 

The Social Influence of the Higher Primary Schools. — 
We have observed the social conservatism of Guizot in 1833, 
when he desired to provide some extension of educational op- 
portunity for the members of the lowest social class, without, 
at the same time, infecting them with the desire for change of 
social status. The present purpose of the government with 
reference to the higher primary schools seems to be little 
different from that of Guizot. These schools, as we have seen, 
are fundamentally the means of preparing their pupils for 
advantageous entrance into the vocations and for the minor 
posts of industrial leadership. And yet the results of that in- 
struction, as indicated by the careers followed by the graduates 
of the higher primary schools, indicate that those intermediate 
schools serve to a considerable degree in aiding the more gifted 
children of the common people to improve their social status. 



114 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

In other words, the higher primary school is a democratic 
agency in that it gives opportunity for ambitious and able 
children to rise into higher social stations. 

In 19 10 an investigation was made of the post-school 
careers of 11,879 boys and 6765 girls leaving the higher pri- 
mary schools. It was found that of the boys, 696 had entered 
other primary schools and 353 had entered secondary schools, 
962 had gone to primary normal schools, and 225 had taken 
positions as teachers or surveillants in schools; 1073 had en- 
tered special schools preparatory to various vocations; 707 
were employed in minor official posts of the state, the depart- 
ments, or the communes; 197 were employed in the railway 
service, mainly at desk-work; 2463 were engaged as clerks or 
bookkeepers in offices; 1279 were employed as workmen or ap- 
prentices in factories or on farms; 497 were employed in banks; 
2079 had followed family occupations, of which 537 were indus- 
trial; 659, commercial; and 903, agricultural. These figures in- 
dicate better than almost anything else can the influence of the 
higher primary schools in the social redistribution of its pupils. 
About 3 per cent of the pupils went into the secondary schools; 
about 10 per cent were primary teachers or evidently intended 
to become such; about 33 per cent were engaged in or preparing 
for industrial or agricultural work; and about 39 per cent were 
working in "white-collar" commercial positions or preparing 
for such. 

When it is recalled that the petite bourgeoisie avails itself 
generally of the higher primary schools and in some sections 
the higher classes of the bourgeoisie to a considerable extent, 
the amount of social re-alignment brought about through those 
schools must be very critically estimated. The state offers 
545 whole or partial scholarships including board — and, in 
some cases, an allowance to the family to reimburse it for the 
lost earnings of the child — to boys in the higher primary 
schools, and 551 such scholarships to girls. These scholarships 
are awarded on competitive examination and represent the 
intention of the state to aid ambitious and gifted youth of the 
lower social group. However, the total amount of aid so given 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 115 

cannot be regarded as a very considerable amelioration of the 
inequalities of educational opportunity. 

Coordination of Primary and Secondary Education. — 
The reform of secondary education which took place by reason 
of the decree of INIay 31, 1902, exhibits a desire on the part of 
the lawmakers to coordinate more closely the work of the pri- 
mary and the secondary schools so as to encourage passage 
from the former to the latter. The first article of the decree 
states that secondary instruction is so coordinated with pri- 
mary instruction that the lowest class in the secondary school 
follows directly upon the ordinary fourth year of the primary 
schedule of studies. In practice, however, the study of for- 
eign languages is begun in the highest preparatory year of the 
secondary school, while no foreign language is taught in the 
first four years of the primary school. The result is that the pu- 
pil entering from the primary school is severely limited in his 
choice of secondary subjects. The state also offers numerous 
scholarships (1251 for boys and 315 for girls in 1913-1914) 
which are open to children of all social classes upon competitive 
examination and sustained excellence of school work. However, 
the costs of the careers opened through the secondary schools 
are so heavy that the children of the social classes lowest in the 
economic scale do not often take advantage of them. Pupils 
holding such scholarships have been known to give them 
up because of the inability of their families to see them through 
to the professional goal ahead. The French secondary school is 
the school for the well-to-do. Anyone may enter who can pay 
the fees and maintain the necessary style of living. Only the 
upper and middle bourgeoisie are willing or able to meet this 
expense for their children. 

As has been often enough pointed out by writers on French 
education, primary and secondary education represent two 
separate systems between which there is, practically speaking, 
a great gulf fixed. The distinction between them is not one of 
age of pupils, as is the case in the United States, for the secon- 
dary system has its preparatory classes which look after the 
earliest education of the children whose parents are willing to 



ii6 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

pay for the privilege of keeping their children away from those 
of their gardener, their chauffeur and their greengrocer. These 
two systems of schools draw their clientele from different so- 
cial classes and point their pupils and graduates into different 
social and economic paths. 

The practical caste organization of French education appar- 
ently has exerted a subtle, but nevertheless powerful, influence 
on the internal economy of the schools. The primary instruc- 
tion leads to a leaving-examination necessary for the pupil who 
wishes to engage in a gainful occupation at the expiration of 
his eleventh year or to a system of competitive examinations 
for scholarships in special primary schools. The secondary cur- 
riculum leads to the baccalaureate, which, it may be repeated, 
is no less a permission to enter certain lines of higher training 
in official service than it is a mark of a liberal education. By 
reason of these definite objectives, with their social impli- 
cations, French education has been very much a matter of 
teaching a syllabus of studies and of preparing for examina- 
tions. As a result of this same emphasis on examinations, the 
purely academic side has been stressed at the expense of 
physical education and the informal side of pupil life. The 
highly centralized control of education in France also works in 
the direction of imposing subject matter upon teacher and 
pupils and reducing the initiative of the teachers and the schools 
in the matter of selecting subject matter related to local needs 
or particular occasions. 

From the point of view of the ideal France has failed, as 
have all other countries to a greater or less extent, of realizing 
a democratic system of education. Ideally considered, democ- 
racy in education implies generous opportunity for every child, 
in spite of social distinctions and economic handicaps, to profit 
by educational opportunities that will enable him to develop 
his ability as far as possible to the ultimate advantage of him- 
self and of society. It implies, furthermore, that the internal 
economy of the school is to be such that each child may dis- 
cover his best capacities and find the means of developing 
them; and, finally, it means that the objective of school prac- 



NATIONAL EDUCATION 117 

tices is the increase of intelligence in the pupil about everyday 
situations and the growth in power to meet the problems of 
citizenship in a critically intelligent spirit. 

Many of the existing limitations of a democratic system of 
education are recognized by some of the contemporary French 
educators and statesmen as problems calling for solution.^ 
The wooden memory-work of the schools, the lack of stimula- 
tion of the pupil's judgment and initiative, the over-emphasis 
upon passing examinations, the unresponsiveness of the pro- 
gram of studies to local needs and particular interests — all 
these matters are up for consideration in France today. The 
lack of social opportunity afforded by the dual system of edu- 
cation on caste lines and the essential waste to the nation at 
large in choosing its leaders in science, in literature, in gov- 
ernment, and in law on the basis of the wealth of parents, is 
being pointed out on all sides, and means of remedying this 
condition are being sought. One of the ways and means of 
enlarging the opportunities for secondary and higher education 
centers about a proposed ecole unique, which shall have as its 
foundation the elementary school, alike in its curriculum 
whether free or fee, and upon which may be built a varied 
structure of cultural, scientific, or technical education, open 
without economic or social restriction to all the children of all 
the people. It seems that the necessity which confronts France 
as a result of the war, of developing all the possible sources of 
economic productivity and spiritual leadership is pointing her 
to a reconstitution of her educational agencies in the spirit of 
Condorcet's prophetic words: 

"To offer to every individual of the human race the means 
of providing for his wants, of insuring his well-being, of know- 
ing and exercising his rights, of knowing and fulfilling his 
duties: 

"To insure to each the means of improving in his daily task, 

of making himself better fitted for the social functions to which 

he may rightly be called, to develop the entire array of gifts 

' See Kandel, Education in France in igi6-i8, U. S, Bureau of Educa- 
tion, Bulletin, 1919, No. 43. 



ii8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

which he has received at the hand of nature, and thereby to 
establish among the citizens an equality in fact, making real 
the political equality recognized by the law; 

"Such should be the predominant purpose of a national sys- 
tem of instruction, and, from that point of view, it is a fit func- 
tion for the state to undertake. 

"To direct education in such a way that the perfection of 
the arts will increase the happiness of the people at large and 
the prosperity of those who labor; in such a way that an 
ever-increasing number of persons will become better fitted to 
perform the work necessary to our social existence; in such 
a way that progress, keeping step with enlightenment, shall 
open an inexhaustible source of supply for our wants, of reme- 
dies for our ills, and of the means of individual happiness and 
common welfare; 

"To cultivate, finally, in each succeeding generation, all the 
powers of body, mind, and conscience, thereby contributing to 
the comprehensive and gradual perfecting of the human race — 
the final objective toward which every social institution should 
be directed: 

"Such should be, I say it again, the purpose of education; 
and it is a duty imposed upon the state by the common interest 
of society and of humanity at large." 

ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical and Institutional Background. — Hayes, A 

Political and Social History of Modern Europe, Vol. II; Hazen, Europe 
Since i8i^; Guerard, French Civilization in the Nineteenth Centtiry. 

Education Source Material. — Greard, La legislation de I'instniction 
primaire en France, V; Annuaire de la jeimesse; Manuals of Moral 
and Civic Instruction in use in the French schools, among which may 
specially be mentioned G. Bruno, Les enjants de Marcel. 

Secondary Accounts. — Cyclopedia of Education, ed. by Monroe, 
article, "France, Education in" ; Farrington, The Public Primary School 
System of France; Farrington, French Secondary Schools; Hope, "Edu- 
cation in France," in Sandiford, Comparative Education; Scott, Patriots 
in the Making; Kandel, Education in France in 1916-18, U. S. Bureau 
of Education, Bulletin, 1919, No. 43. 



PART II 

PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN 
EMPIRE 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE REGENERATION OF PRUSSIA AND THE 
ORGANIZATION OF AN EFFICIENT 
NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDU- 
CATION (1807-1840) 

Progress toward a State System of Education in the 
Eighteenth Century. — In some ways it is unsatisfactory and 
even incorrect to accept the reforms that followed the Peace 
of Tilsit as the beginning of national education in Prussia. As 
early as 1716, Frederick William I had published a rescript 
which made attendance at the village schools compulsory for 
all children not otherwise provided with instruction. A more 
thoroughgoing attempt to regulate school affairs is to be found 
in the "General Regulations for Village Schools," issued by 
Frederick the Great in 1763. In this official announcement, 
the earlier order for compulsory attendance was repeated, the 
school term and the school day were definitely organized, the 
curriculum was prescribed, clerical supervision was provided for, 
and many other matters relating to the conduct of the school 
were touched upon. 

A further step in the direction of nationalizing education in 
Prussia was taken in 1787 when the direction of school affairs 
was taken out of the hands of the consistories of the church 
and placed in the hands of an Oberschulkollegium, a board 
consisting of a group of state officials charged with the spe- 
cialized duty of school control. The effects of the legal change 
were nullified, however, on the succession of Frederick Wil- 
liam II, who was a violent opponent of the forces of national- 
ism and secularization. His appointments to the Oberschul- 
kollegium insured the continuance of the old church control 
over education in spite of the change in official organization. 

In 1794, when a codification of Prussian civil law was pub- 



12 2 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

lished under the name Allgemeines Landrecht, the principle of 
state supremacy in education was definitely recognized. Indeed, 
a careful study of the numerous paragraphs of the Code that 
deal with education will show that the foundations upon 
which the later national system of education was built were 
firmly laid at least as early as 1794. The Code reiterated the 
principle of compulsory attendance and prescribed it as a 
duty of the school patrons to maintain a public school. The 
local officials of the church were recognized as the supervisors 
of the schools in their parishes, while the principle of non- 
discrimination against pupils on the grounds of religion was 
clearly set forth. 

Not only from the standpoint of legal enactments but from 
that of unambiguous educational thought, the national concep- 
tion of education had been fostered in Prussia years before 
Fichte spoke in Berlin on the same theme. Von Rochow, von 
Zedlitz, Basedow, and others had during the latter part of the 
eighteenth century advanced the political and secular impor- 
tance of education and had advocated it as an instrument of 
economic and social improvement. Frederick the Great had 
seen in education an important means of improving the eco- 
nomic condition of his country. He also saw the value of a gen- 
eral diffusion of elementary instruction in the preparation of non- 
commissioned officers for their duties in his army. He no less 
recognized the impossibility of bringing all his domains under 
a uniform legal and administrative system without the more 
general diffusion among his subjects of ability to read the 
official German language. 

Universal Education in' a Mediaeval Society. — It is of 
more than passing importance that the conception of universal 
elementary education should have received so great devel- 
opment in Prussia at a time when the social, economic, and 
political institutions of the country were so completely medi- 
aeval. Universal education under any absolute monarchy, even 
though the latter may be characterized as a "benevolent des- 
potism," is likely to exhibit the main characteristics of such 
a political regime. Prussia in 1763 and up to the date of the 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 123 

reforms following the Treaty of Tilsit (1807) was extremely 
backward in its social and political institutions. There ex- 
isted numerous and heavy restrictions upon the cities, upon 
industries, upon individuals, and upon the land. Society was 
organized according to a rigorous class system. Education, 
too, reflected the mediaeval status of the people. No one was 
more concerned than Frederick the Great himself to see that 
the education of the people should stop short of that which 
would make them discontented with their lot and cause them 
to aspire to greater social, economic, and political freedom. 
(See Alexander, Prussian Elementary Schools, pp. 14-19.) 
Prussia had, at least theoretically, come to the principle of uni- 
versal education under national control, before its general social 
organization had been at all touched by the spirit of political 
liberalism; that is to say, before education had come to be 
thought of as a means of bringing to his highest potential 
human worth every child in the nation. The theory, and in 
part the practice, of a state system of education devoted to 
maintaining the status quo had gone into effect. The people 
of the lower classes, according to this conception, were to be 
educated for piety, morality, economic efficiency, and willing 
social subordination. Within limits they were to be improved, 
but care was to be taken that the education given should in 
no way tend to make them unpleasantly conscious of social 
inequality and ambitious for social change or the improvement 
of their individual positions in the social order. 

No Efficient National System before the Nineteenth 
Century. — The main justification for regarding the decade after 
the Treaty of Tilsit as the real beginning of national educa- 
tion in Prussia lies in the fact that the school system before 
that time existed largely in the statute books. German his- 
torians are unanimous in their statements that the schools for 
the common people were in a very inferior condition until after 
the agrarian reforms of vom Stein and Hardenberg had been 
put into effect. The miserable condition of the farming and 
laboring classes and the stagnation of industry made it im- 
possible for the state and the communities to support a plan 



124 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

of universal education as contemplated in the laws. The pri- 
mary schools until well into the second decade of the nine- 
teenth century exhibited the meager religious curriculum and 
the brutal and repressive discipline that had been the rule dur- 
ing the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The teaching 
personnel still remained a nondescript collection of tradesmen, 
disabled and superannuated soldiers, and minor church ser- 
vants — frequently of doubtful morals and invariably with the 
slenderest imaginable equipment of school knowledge and skill. 

In the field of secondary education the traditional church 
control still obtained in spite of the statutory changes of the 
eighteenth century. Standards were not only low, they were 
non-existent. The teaching force consisted largely of young 
ministerial candidates waiting for places, and secondary educa- 
tion was administered rather as a branch of church work than 
as a civil function. It can thus be seen that in spite of the 
apparent development of a national system of education during 
the eighteenth century, there was nothing worthy of the name 
of national education in Prussia up to the time of the reforms 
that followed upon the Peace of Tilsit. 

National Disaster and the Treaty of Tilsit. — It is im- 
possible in this connection to relate the political and the mili- 
tary events which led to the defeat of Prussia at the hands 
of Napoleon and to the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807. It is suffi- 
cient to say that the highly efficient bureaucracy and the vic- 
torious army which had been organized through the administra- 
tive and military genius of Frederick the Great and kept at a 
high pitch of efficiency through his tireless industry, had through 
the nerveless guidance of Frederick William II, become but 
the hollow, dry-rotted outlines of their former power. His 
successor, Frederick William III, after his succession in 1797 to 
the throne of Prussia, made little improvement in the condi- 
tions of the government until the inglorious events of 1806-7 
compelled him to consider drastic proposals regarding ways 
and means of bringing Prussia out of the degraded national 
condition into which she had fallen. 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 125 

The Treaty of Tilsit deprived Prussia of all the territorial 
gains she had made at the expense of Poland since 1772, stripped 
her of all her territories west of the Elbe, laid upon her an 
indemnity of 120,000,000 francs, and compelled her to support 
an army of occupation of 150,000 soldiers. By a condition 
laid upon her the following year her army was limited to 
42,000 men. 

The Birth of German Patriotism. — Here again in Prussia 
as in France in 1792, we may see the extremity of national 
need and the degradation of national pride operating to rally 
to new life the dispersed and inactive potentialities of the 
people. The tremendous developments which took place in 
Prussian life following the Peace of Tilsit are often described 
as a resurrection. In view of what was accomplished in a few 
years in the way of practical reforms and change of spiritual 
attitudes, the use of such language does not seem extravagant. 

An extremely important, if not the fundamental, change 
which occurred in Prussian and all German thought and feel- 
ing at this time, was the rapid growth of patriotism under the 
stimulation of German philosophers and poets. The great 
intellectual figures of the late eighteenth century in Germany 
had been indifferent to nationalism. Lessing, Herder, Kant, 
Goethe, — and, in their earlier years, Schiller, Fichte, and 
Hegel — were cosmopolitan or international in their thinking. 
Kant's writings are full of an ideal of perpetual peace and uni- 
versal brotherhood to be brought about through the gradual 
and peaceful penetration of benevolent ideas. Goethe even 
professed a great admiration for Napoleon, describing him as 
a "Weltgeist zu Pferde" and thus cataloging him among the 
cosmic forces leading to better conditions of human existence. 
Schiller, in one of his letters written in 1789, said that the 
philosophic spirit could not tolerate the limitation of its politi- 
cal thought to the unit of the nation, which he described as a 
form of human nature "arbitrary, fluctuating, accidental." He 
said further: "The most powerful nation is but a fragment; 
and thinking minds will not grow warm on its account, except 



126 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

in so far as this nation or its fortunes have exercised influence 
on the progress of the species." ^ In general his early writings 
reflect a cosmopolitan rather than a national interest. Fichte, in 
a series of lectures given at Berlin in 1804- 1805 on "The Char- 
acteristics of the Present Age," considered the whole of Europe 
as a social unit and did not at all recognize nationalism as a 
valid political motive. Hegel is said to have written the con- 
cluding pages of the "Phenomenology of the Spirit" undisturbed 
in his study while the guns of the battle of Jena were sounding 
the knell of Prussian independence. 

But with the defeat of Prussian arms and the threatened 
disappearance of German national identity the thinkers and 
poets of German lands rallied to the Fatherland. Out of the 
very completeness of the disaster arose a greater, more com- 
prehensive conception of German nationality. The former 
congeries of three hundred states, most of them petty and in- 
significant, had been unable to call forth enthusiasm, and in 
place of that inglorious political system the poet and the 
philosopher turned to the conception of a united Germany. 
The appeal was made to all who spoke the German tongue and 
who were descended from the old German stock that had 
successfully resisted the Roman legions, to unite for the pur- 
pose of throwing off the yoke of French tyranny. The easy 
cosmopolitanism of the later eighteenth century became foreign 
to German literature. Kleist, Uhland, Korner, and Arndt made 
their passionate poetic appeal to the people at large, the phi- 
losopher Fichte found a hearing among the intellectual class. 
During the winter of 1807- 1808, while French soldiers policed 
the Academy of Science at Berlin as he gave his lectures, Fichte 
delivered a series of fourteen "Addresses to the German Na- 
tion" which, perhaps more clearly than any other document 
of the time, set forth the conception of nationalism and pro- 
posed education as the means of national regeneration. 

Fichte's Addresses to the German Nation. — Fichte made 
his appeal directly to the spirit of patriotism which he was 
certain existed in the hearts of millions of his fellow country- 

^ Rose, Nationality in Modern History, p. 39. 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 127 

men. He did not try to prove the existence of this sentiment; 
he even admitted that such an attempt would be futile. 
But he relied upon the presence in others of an emotion which 
in his own breast was all-consuming. 

Fichte laid the blame for Prussia's and Germany's misfor- 
tunes upon the excessive development of individualism which 
he called by the plain name of selfishness. The insularity of 
the little political groups, the divisions among social classes, 
the lack of cohesion among the individuals who composed the 
states, the passion for money-getting and individual success, 
were all symptoms of the single devastating national disease. 
To combat the mental illness with which the state was afflicted, 
it was necessary to substitute for the principle of self-seeking, 
the principle of self-devotion to a social organism which was to 
be coextensive with the prevalence of the German language. 

Fichte, however, did not rest his appeal entirely upon the 
emotion of patriotism. He drew arguments out of the unique 
character of the German people. The German race alone of 
European races, he said, had been able to keep itself pure from 
Roman elements. It was an Urvolk with a character all its 
own. Its continuance was a part of the Divine plan of the 
universe, because the German people had been put upon the 
earth to express its own particular genius. It would be un- 
thinkable that it should perish, because in the nature of 
things it was intended to endure. 

In general, however, Fichte's appeal was to an emotion which 
he helped largely to create — an emotion of whole-hearted, de- 
voted love of fatherland. It was the same appeal which had 
stirred France in the nineties of the preceding century to unex- 
ampled efforts of resistance against foreign invasion. It was, 
in short, that emotion of patriotism which gains little from an 
attempt at analysis or explanation, but which we can recog- 
nize as so potent a social force in past ages and as undimin- 
ished in the present. 

Fichte recognized the fact, however, that the flame which 
animated him did not bum in everyone, else Germany would 
not have fallen into such a low estate. The first business 



128 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

before the nation was to teach the majority of the citizens 
the meaning of patriotism and in order to be sure of a major- 
ity, all would have to be taught. Thus arose one of the very 
definite reasons why a universal state system of education was 
necessary, namely, in order to inculcate blameless, ardent 
patriotism within the oncoming generation. Fichte considered 
nationalistic propaganda one of the most important functions 
of a state system of schools. 

In his adoption of the dominant principle of nationalism 
Fichte did not break completely with his own earlier thought 
life. He still considered the purpose of all political organiza- 
tion to be the freeing of the individual for self-development and 
self-expression. He complained of Pestalozzi's use of the ex- 
pression, "education of the common people," and desired that 
there should no longer be any common people in the sense 
of a lower and vulgar class. He conceived of a caste system 
of schools as being incompatible with German nationality and 
desired that every youth should be given the opportunity, ir- 
respective of his social origin or economic condition, of partici- 
pating as fully as his abilities would permit in a well-rounded 
plan of moral, intellectual, vocational, and physical education. 

Fichte thus is seen to have combined, in his "Addresses to 
the German Nation," the two dominant conceptions of nine- 
teenth century political development — namely, nationalism and 
democracy. The nation, he taught, is to be accepted as the 
unit of social organization. It must have and know its char- 
acter and destiny. It must achieve that character and that 
destiny through the conscious control of the education of all its 
youth. That education must liberate in each son of all the 
people the potentialities for national service that exist within 
him. 

Legal Changes in Social and Economic Conditions. — 
Parallel with the revolutionary changes in popular feeling which 
ensued upon a realization of the peril to German life and 
institutions that lay in the military successes of Napoleon, 
there occurred a series of administrative, economic, and social 
reforms which went far to remove Prussia from medisevalism. 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 129 

It may be said that the spirit of Baron vom Stein, and in part, 
his own efforts, entered into the entire program of Prussian 
rehabilitation that was effected during the first two decades of 
the century. 

Vom Stein saw that Prussia's military organization had to 
be made over. With the compulsory restriction of the army 
to 42,000 men a plan was followed of having. 42,000 different 
men every year receive training and go into reserve. This 
was the beginning of the present Continental program of mili- 
tary training. It was developed and put into successful opera- 
tion by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with important effects when 
Prussia took up the sword in 1813 to recover her lost inde- 
pendence. Through vom Stein's labors the financial system 
of the state also was reformed and put upon a firm basis. The 
Emancipating Edict of 1807 abolished the status of villeinage 
and made all persons free. It also removed the burdensome 
restriction upon the sale and exchange of land whereby thereto- 
fore "noble" land had had to remain in the hands of the nobles, 
"civic" lands in the hands of citizens, and "peasant" land in 
the hands of peasants. Furthermore, it broke up the pre- 
vailing caste distinctions of persons and occupations so that 
any one could engage in any calling to which his talents and in- 
clinations might call him. In 181 1 an important agrarian law 
removed troublesome fixed dues and quit rents upon the land 
and greatly stimulated the growth of a class of peasant pro- 
prietors. By the Municipal Act of 1808 towns were freed in 
local affairs from the control of feudal lords and the central 
government, and were given the right to elect councils for the 
administration of local business. 

The Organization of a National System of Education 

Legislative Reorganization of National Education. — 
No less important for the resuscitation of Prussia than the 
economic and social changes mentioned above were the steps 
taken to establish a strong national system of education. In 
1807 a Bureau of Education was erected in the Ministry of 



130 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

the Interior; and in 181 7 a separate Department of Educa- 
tion was created in the Ministry of Religion, Education, and 
Public Health. In 181 1 "Instructions for the Formation and 
Management of City School Deputations" were issued, ac- 
cording to which local boards of oversight and control for 
primary education were given a great deal of authority in 
school matters in towns and cities. The general introduction 
of local school authorities in the rural districts took place 
after 181 2 through the rescript of the royal Department for 
Religion and Public Instruction dated October 28 of that year. 
Through regulations issued in 181 7 and in 1825 the adminis- 
trative system in the provinces and the counties {Regierungs- 
bezirke) was established. 

Important reforms of secondary education were brought 
about during this same period. By a rescript of 'July 12, 1810, 
a special examination conducted by the state was made com- 
pulsory for all candidates for teaching positions in the secon- 
dary schools. Two years later, in 1812, revised regulations for 
graduation (leaving examinations) were published for secon- 
dary schools. Only such higher schools as were authorized to 
hold the official Jeaving examination were to be classified as 
gymnasiums, and only graduates from such recognized secon- 
dary schools were accepted for university studies without fur- 
ther examination. 

An account of the system erected in this legislation is pre- 
sented in a report made in 1831 by M. Victor Cousin, who was 
sent to Prussia by the French government of that time, namely, 
the July Monarchy, to examine the educational system of that 
country. The account may be regarded as authentic and as 
offering a good description of the educational machinery which 
Prussia had erected in the first quarter of a century following 
the Peace of Tilsit. We shall follow Cousin's account pretty 
closely for a description of the Prussian system of education 
in the period under consideration. 

Education Officials Representative of the Nation. — 
Education was represented in the King's Council of Min- 
isters in the person of the Minister of Religion, Education, 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 131 

and Public Health. A Department of Education was one of 
the three departments organized in this ministry, and from 
181 7 to 1840, at the time of his death, it was presided over by 
Baron von Altenstein. The educational authority of the state 
had direct control over the universities, of which there were 
seven, including the University of Berlin erected in 1810 at 
the time of Prussia's deepest national gloom. The appoint- 
ment of all university professors lay directly in the hands of 
the Minister of Education, but the election of deans, rectors, 
and other university authorities was left to the professors them- 
selves. 

Provincial School Administration. — For administrative 
purposes Prussia was divided into ten provinces. Each prov- 
ince was organized into lesser divisions known as Regierungs- 
bezirke. The Regierungsbezirke were subdivided into Kreise 
or circles and the circles into Gemeinden, or communities. 

The civil administration of each province was in the hands 
of a consistory, presided over by an Oberprdsident, and each 
consistory was divided into three sections corresponding to the 
three fields covered by the Ministry of Religion, Education, 
and Public Health. The section of the consistory in charge 
of education was called the Schulkollegium, or school board. 
It was largely lay in its personnel and its spirit was civil 
rather than ecclesiastical. The members of the consistory, in- 
cluding the members of the school board, were nominated di- 
rectly by the Minister. All correspondence dealing with edu- 
cation was carried on for the school board through the Ober- 
prdsident. The main business of the school board was with 
secondary education, although it was also responsible for 
the establishment and maintenance of teacher training insti- 
tutions for the primary schools and had a voice in all the more 
important decisions concerning primary education. Attached 
to the school board was an examination commission which was 
in charge of the examinations imposed by the laws of 18 10 
and 1 81 2. The first of these, it may be recalled, set up a uni- 
form standard of proficiency for candidates for teaching posi- 
tions in secondary schools, and the second established the 



132 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

standards of graduation from the gymnasium and admission 
to university study. 

Regency Administration. — The Regierungsbezirke, or 
administrative counties, into which the provinces were di- 
vided had each its president and its council. The council was 
composed of several councillors who divided among them the 
full range of official work. Among the councillors was the 
Schulrath, or school councillor, who was the special officer of 
the council for matters relating to public education. He was 
nominated by the Minister of Education. He corresponded, 
through the president of the council with the higher educational 
authorities of the state and directly with the subordinate offi- 
cials of the educational hierarchy. The Schulrath was the real 
director of primary education in each Regierungsbezirk . The 
close connection of the government as a whole with education 
was furthered by the fact that the Schulrath as a member of 
the council was at one and the same time an official of the in- 
terior department and of the public education department. 

Local Inspection and Administration of Schools. — 
For purposes of school inspection the Regierungsbezirke 
were subdivided into Kreise, or circles, each of which had its 
Kreisschulinspector, or circle school inspector. His authority 
extended to all the primary schools in his circle, and he was 
in close communication with the local inspectors and school 
officials. He was practically always a clergyman, and in 
Catholic parts the dean. The circle inspectors for Protestant 
schools were nominated by the provincial consistories and con- 
firmed by the Minister of Public Education. For Catholic 
schools they were first proposed to the consistories by the 
bishops and then presented by the consistories to the minister. 

The final administrative subdivision was the Gemeinde, or 
commune, parish, or school district. Each Gemeinde, accord- 
ing to law, was compelled to maintain at least one primary 
school. In the rural Gemeinde the local school authorities 
were called the Schulv or stand, or committee of management. 
The committee consisted of the school patron, the church, the 
clergyman of the parish to which the school belonged, the 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 133 

magistrate of the Gemeinde, and one or two householders who 
were members of the Schulverein, or school association (see 
below). In every such association comprising persons of dif- 
ferent religious communions, care was to be exercised that 
each communion should be represented according to its num- 
bers. Certain members of the Schulvorstand, namely, the 
patrons or founders (if there were any), the clergyman and the 
local magistrates, formed the managing committee of the 
school. These managing committees had cognizance of all 
school matters, internal and external, but the ecclesiastical 
members alone had authority in all that belonged to the in- 
ternal order of the school and the superintendence and direc- 
tion of the schoolmasters. The civil representative had charge 
of the financial side of the school. The local pastor was thus 
officially designated as the local inspector of primary education, 
and he was expected to visit the school frequently and keep 
in close touch with it. 

In urban parishes with more than one school, each had 
its own managing committee and in addition there was erected 
a comprehensive body called the Schulkommission {Schuldepu- 
tation), or school commission, which was to have general juris- 
diction over the primary schools of the town. The same pre- 
dominance of official and ecclesiastical membership obtained 
in the Schtilkommission as was the case in the Schidv or stand. 
Likewise, all members of this, as of the other body, had to be 
approved and confirmed in their office by the provincial con- 
sistories. 

The Financial Support of Primary Education. — The 
maintenance of the local primary, or folk, schools was by means 
of Lands chtdvcreine, or country school associations. The 
Schulverein was under the direction of the local school authori- 
ties. It was composed of all persons owning real estate, 
whether or not they had children to send to school, and of 
all the householders living in the parish whether or not they 
were landowners. The formation of a Schulverein was not a 
voluntary matter, but was the legal organization of the means 
of school support. The fees levied upon the members were 



134 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

collected as ordinary taxes. All landowners, tenants, and 
householders, without distinction, contributed in proportion to 
the income of their respective properties lying within the area 
of the association or to the product of their industry. They 
paid this contribution either in money or in kind or, if they 
could do no other, in building materials or labor. 

It should be pointed out in this connection, however, that 
every child attending school was expected to pay a fee, the 
Schulgeld, which was used toward defraying the expenses of 
the school. If pupils were too poor to pay the fee, they were 
given gfatuitous instruction and, in case of great need, were 
furnished with schoolbooks and other necessary school sup- 
plies. ^ 

An Efficient System of Compulsory Attendance. — 
In speaking of the duty of parents to send their children to 
school. Cousin says in his Report, "This duty is so national, 
so rooted in all the legal and moral habits of the country that 
it is expressed by a single word, Schulpflichtigkeit (school 
duty, or school obligation). It corresponds to another word, 
similarly formed and similarly sanctioned by public opinion, 
Dienstpflichtigkeit (service obligation, that is military service). 
These two words are completely characteristic of Prussia: they 
contain the secret of its originality as a nation, of its power 
as a state, and the germ of its future condition." The age 
of compulsory attendance was six to fourteen. In case the 
child had completed the course of study before reaching the 
age of fourteen, he could be excused from further attendance by 
the Schulv or stand. In general it was expected that he should 
attend school until the time of his church confirmation. 

In order to make effective the provision for school attendance, 
careful lists of all children of school age were compiled by 
the local authorities. In case of delinquency the police au- 
thority was brought to bear upon the parents of the delin- 
quent children. Permission was given to parents to provide 
elsewhere than in the public school of their own association 
for the education of their children, but this did not absolve 
them from the duty of paying their association dues. 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 135 

Private Primary Schools Brought under State Control. 
— Private primary schools were allowed, but under very defi-' 
nite conditions and with adequate state supervision. The 
teacher had to submit to an official examination, usually by 
the circle school inspector, to show that he was intellectually 
competent to perform the work well. His moral record was 
examined with equal care. If the provincial consistory on re- 
port of the subordinate officials, found no fault with the appli- 
cant's credentials, it provided him with the necessary permis- 
sion to maintain a given school at a given place. When the 
license had been granted to open a private school, the school 
was assigned by the school commission to one of its members 
for his special supervision. This supervision extended to in- 
struction in the studies as well as to morals. The particular 
plan of instruction, the choice of books, of methods, and of 
rules for the school were to be left to the masters and mis- 
tresses. But in case anything was discovered that might tend 
to endanger the morality or piety of the pupils and in case bad 
masters or books should be employed, the inspectors were 
given power to lay a complaint with the provincial consistory, 
which had power to withdraw the license for the school and 
close it down in case such action seemed for the public good. 

The Certification and Appointment of Teachers. — 
No person was eligible to teach in a primary school without 
possessing a certificate of his fitness, obtained through examina- 
tion by official authorities. This examination was taken both 
by the students at the teachers' seminaries, or primary normal 
schools, as we usually speak of them, and by those candidates 
who had made their preparation in other ways. The secular 
and religious parts of the examination were separate, the latter 
being conducted by a church official of the sect to which the 
candidate belonged. A candidate who had been found on 
examination to be competent had his name placed on a list 
comprising all those from a given Regierungsbezirk. These 
names were officially published every six months. It was ex- 
pected that preference in the selection of teachers would be 
given to the candidates with normal training. 



136 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

The election and nomin tion of the rural teachers lay in 
the hands of the Landschulvereine or school associations, which 
had the privilege of choosing any one from the official list. In 
towns the choice of teachers lay in the hands of the municipal 
and local education authorities. The nominating authorities 
gave each teacher chosen a certificate of nomination which had 
to be countersigned by the royal authority before it would 
possess validity. In the case of Catholic teachers, the bishops 
had the right to make objection to the ratification of the ap- 
pointment of any candidate. Only when the teacher had in his 
hand the certificate of nomination with its royal ratification, 
could he be regularly installed as teacher in a primary school. 

Once installed in office, the teacher was eligible to promotion 
and secure in his tenure. In case of professional neglect or 
moral delinquency he could be punished in various degrees and 
finally removed from office, but very definite safeguards were 
set up to provide against injustice. 

Provisions for Teacher Training. — A very important 
aspect of the national educational revival in Prussia in the 
first quarter of the nineteenth century was the strong effort 
made to improve the teaching personnel. The use of examina- 
tions to insure efficiency and the care used in appointments 
have already been mentioned. In addition, Prussia led the way 
in its effort to provide a thoroughly trained and profession- 
ally enthusiastic corps of primary teachers through its estab- 
lishment of Schidlehrer-seminarien, or primary normal schools. 
Even before the national disaster at Jena, Prussia had sent a 
representative to Burgdorf to observe Pestalozzi's methods. 
This representative. Seminary Inspector Jeziorowski, was ex- 
pected to bring back to those Polish territories belonging to 
Prussia as the result of the second and third divisions of 
Poland; methods of teaching which might hasten the relief 
of the educational destitution which existed in those territories. 
Later, in 1809, three young men, Preuss, Kawerau, and Hen- 
ning, were sent by the government to Yverdon to observe Pesta- 
lozzi's work. In the same year the government called Karl 
August Zeller, a Pestalozzian disciple, to be Schtdrath (see 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 137 

p. 132) in East Prussia. He est'tolished a normal school at 
Konigsberg and later on he founded normal schools at Karalenei 
and Braunsberg. Eleven other government scholars were sent 
about this same time to Yverdon to learn Pestalozzi's methods 
and appropriate to themselves his spirit. These young repre- 
sentatives of the Prussian state returned to found normal 
schools and to take other important positions of leadership in 
the Prussian school system. It is thus seen that at the time 
of the greatest national enthusiasm and of the most liberal 
political thought that has ever existed in Prussia, the influence 
of Pestalozzi was brought into the Prussian primary school 
system. Later, we shall try to estimate the influence which 
this spirit was able to exert against the reaction which followed 
upon the Congress of Vienna in 181 5. 

Thus a very definite and practical result of the contact 
of Prussian officialdom with the genius of Pestalozzi was the 
establishment of seminaries or normal schools for the training 
of primary teachers. In 1831, according to Cousin, there was 
not a single Regierungsbezirk in any province of Prussia, 
without a teachers' seminary. The number of such schools was 
38 in 1840. The cost of maintenance of the seminaries was 
borne by the provinces and the state. Students, however, were 
charged a moderate sum for tuition and board, which amounted 
to about one-half of the cost of their education. 

The institution as described by Cousin was a boarding school, 
usually with a model or practice school attached or easily 
available. Within the school an almost military discipline 
obtained and the general atmosphere was said to have been 
much like that of a barracks. Religious observances were fre- 
quent and the entire institution exhibited a strong religious 
tone. It was thought indispensable that pupils who were to 
become the teachers of the youth should be permeated with the 
spirit of religion. The moral and religious aspect of the 
normal training was easily placed first. A report of one of the 
great seminaries of this early period reads as follows: "We 
have abundant proof that the well-being of an individual, like 
that of a people, is nowise secured by extraordinary intellec- 



138 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

tual powers or very refined culture. The true happiness of an 
individual, as of a people, is founded on strict morality, self- 
government, humility, and moderation; on the willing per- 
formance of all duties to God, his superiors, and his neighbors." 
The indication is very plain that the instruction in religion was 
to serve both as an instrument of personal piety and social 
conservatism. Religion showed the proper respect for the 
existing political and social orders; hence it was an important 
aspect of an instruction which was intended to improve the 
lot of the individual in the state, without in the slightest 
degree making him dissatisfied with his condition or desirous 
of changing existing institutions. 

Patriotism in the Teachers' Seminaries. — The seminaries 
were founded in considerable numbers during the period when 
Prussian national feeling ran highest under the insult of French 
sovereignty. It is to be expected, as was the fact, that they 
should be impregnated with the spirit of patriotism. Harnisch, 
director of the seminary at Breslau, chosen captain in the War 
of Liberation and enlisting with forty of his pupils, is only a 
conspicuous example of patriotic zeal which animated both 
instructors and pupils in the normal schools of Prussia. The 
spirit of national patriotism pervaded the instruction in the 
German language and literature, home geography and history 
and was made socially effective through the emphasis on 
group singing of popular patriotic songs. In the regulations 
of the small seminary at Pyritz, piety was to be shown, among 
other ways "by respect for the king, our sovereign, and by 
unshaken fidelity to our country." 

The Curriculum of the Seminaries. — The work of the 
larger seminaries was outlined to cover a period of three years, 
although many students left before completing the full course. 
The curriculum of the primary normal school at Potsdam is 
reported by Cousin to have been as follows: In the first year, 
under the heading religion, an introduction was made to bibli- 
cal and ecclesiastical history. German language was studied 
throughout the year; reading, arithmetic, geometry, and mathe- 
matics, writing, drawing, singing, thoroughbass and organ, 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 139 

and violin. In the second year the instruction in religion was 
continued as a study of Christian faith and morals. German 
language study was continued. The other subjects mentioned 
as given in the first year were continued in the second, with 
the addition of general, physical, and mathematical geogra- 
phy, with a little of natural philosophy, and an introduction to 
natural history, including botany. In the third year, the 
students practised German composition and carried to a 
higher state of perfection their exercises in writing, drawing, 
and music, including musical composition. In addition they 
studied the "most important parts" of psychology and the sci- 
ence of methods of teaching, zoology, botany, and mineralogy, 
ancient, mediaeval, and modern history with special emphasis 
upon the history of Germany and Prussia, and particularly 
Brandenburg, and finally some introductory studies of physics. 
Such a curriculum as the one just described may justly be 
regarded as extremely liberal, and as likely to stimulate the 
pupils to independent thinking. To be sure the smaller normal 
schools did not have so extensive a course of study, but the 
larger ones were unable to escape the condemnation of numer- 
ous critics as offering entirely too extensive training to the men 
who were intended to teach in the primary schools. 

The Conflict between Liberal and Conservative 
Political Opinion 

We can see readily enough why the normal schools later on 
became the battle-ground of conservative and radical opinion. 
The primary school was a school for an inferior, politically im- 
potent social class. Its virtues were to be those of submission 
and loyalty. The normal school's mission was to provide 
teachers for the primary schools, and there was seen to be 
real danger in equipping those teachers with too extensive a 
training, and too independent an outlook upon life. The crisis 
in the history of Prussian public education was bound to turn 
upon this very point. Furthermore, it was inevitable that a 
crisis should arrive because of the necessary contradiction be- 



140 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

tween education considered as a means of human development 
and education considered as an instrumentality to strengthen 
an undemocratic political and social regime. The point is so 
important for an understanding of Prussian education that 
it deserves extended consideration. 

Before the reforms that followed the Treaty of Tilsit, Prus- 
sia was thoroughly mediaeval in its social organization. We 
have already referred to the series of administrative and eco- 
nomic reforms brought about through Baron vom Stein and 
those who caught inspiration from him (see p. 128). These 
reforms removed the shackles of feudalism from Prussian so- 
cial life, but vom Stein was unable to remain in office long 
enough to carry out the plans which he had in mind of gradu- 
ally establishing a set of representative political institutions 
in Prussia and to give that country a constitutional govern- 
ment. The warmth of feeling generated by the consciousness 
of national disaster tended to unite all classes of society and to 
soften social distinctions. It was in the glow of this enthusiasm 
that the primary school system was planned and got under way. 
Fichte perhaps went farther than most of even the more liberal 
thinkers of Prussia, when he said that he did not wish to see 
schools established for the specific service of the lower social 
classes, but rather desired to have schools for all that could as 
rapidly as possible eliminate social distinctions denoting in- 
feriority and superiority. To educate every individual to his 
fullest possibilities in order that the state might enjoy the 
service of such unrestricted powers, — that was Fichte's ex- 
tremely democratic ideal. Mingled with a strong patriotic 
element this democratic ideal seemed to be influential in the 
earliest revival of Prussian public education. 

Siivern's Sketch of a General Education Law. — No offi- 
cial document more strongly substantiates the view that the 
motives underlying the early foundation of public education in 
Prussia tended to be liberal, than the sketch of a. general 
education law which was prepared by Councillor Siivern in 
1819 on the order of the King. The outline was submitted by 
von Altenstein, the head of the department of education, to 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 141 

various influential groups in the government, and on one ground 
and another it was opposed. The result was that the general 
education law as presented by Siivern was never promulgated. 

SUvern proposed that public education should be organ- 
ized in three successive grades. The lowest of these was to be 
called the common elementary school. It was to concern itself 
with the earliest systematic development of human capacities 
and thereby with the increase of intelligence, knowledge, and 
skill as suited to the educational needs of the lower social 
classes in the city and the country. The second grade of 
school was to be called the common city school and in it the 
education of the youth was to be carried to that turning point 
at which are customarily exhibited ability and inclination 
either for higher learned studies or for special preparation for 
a middle class occupation. The third grade of education was 
to be called the gymnasium, the objectives of which should be 
the laying of the foundations of a broadly cultural education 
and the preparation for the higher and specialized studies of 
the university. All three of these grades of education were to 
be so organized as to form an organic whole, and the lower were 
to serve as a preparation for the next higher. All pupils with- 
out discrimination were to be accepted for the common in- 
struction provided they were at all able to learn and prepared 
to undertake with profit the work of the grade for which they 
applied. 

The implication of Siivern's plan of organization is that the 
primary school was to serve as a preparation for more ad- 
vanced instruction, which in turn was to lead to the gymnasium 
and thereafter to the university. In other words he proposed 
to organize education as a "ladder leading from the gutter to 
the university." He desired to make it possible for any boy 
of the humblest social class in Prussia to rise as easily as pos- 
sible from that class to the highest official and professional 
callings and thus to improve his social position as far as his 
abilities and character allowed. And this plan seems to be a 
logical development of the educational ideas of Fichte and 
the social and political purposes of Baron vom Stein, 



142 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

The Spirit of Political Reaction. — In order to understand 
the coolness with which SUvern's democratic proposal was re- 
ceived, it is necessary for us to recall that the overthrow of 
Napoleon by the alliance between England, Prussia, Russia, 
and Austria, was the beginning of a period of political reaction 
toward conditions as they had existed before the French Revo- 
lution and the victorious campaigns of Napoleon. The sym- 
pathy with any social developments that tended to restore 
their lost advantages, of those orders of the population whose 
prerogatives and privileges had been curtailed through the 
overthrow of the "old regime" was assured in advance. Be- 
sides this discontent of the nobility, the clergy, and the rulers, 
there was the strong desire of the middle class merchants, 
manufacturers, and bankers to see stable economic conditions 
restored. The ruling classes of the population had come to 
associate the economic losses and the personal privations of 
war with the principles of political liberalism; and they were 
willing to give their support to any system of government which 
promised the return of European society to a condition of 
peace and economic productiveness. The dominating spirit 
of the era which followed upon the Council of Vienna, 18 15, 
was Metternich. He was an implacable enemy of any move- 
ment toward the increased recognition of the common people 
and any tendency to augment their influence in the control of 
the government. Largely due to his influence, the reorganiza- 
tion of Europe in 181 5 took place through the use of the prin- 
ciple of restoring as far as possible the territorial boundaries 
and the form of political and social organization which the 
tremendous events of the preceding twenty-five years had dis- 
turbed. 

Attitude of Frederick William III. — In no country in 
Europe was the tendency towards political reaction more 
marked than in Prussia. A few of the South German States, 
Baden, Hanover, and Saxony, had granted constitutional char- 
ters to their citizens like that which Louis XVIII granted in 
France, but in Prussia the movement toward political liberal- 
ism began to show signs of defeat after 181 5. King Frederick 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 143 

William III had never been in complete sympathy with the, 
liberal program of vom Stein, his great minister, and it was 
only the exigency of threatened, even accomplished, national 
disaster, that won his assent to social, political, and economic 
changes that barely brought Prussia out of the feudal organi- 
zation of the Middle Ages. As soon as the pressure of im- 
pending national ruin was removed, Frederick William III 
exhibited himself in the congenial role of "father of his people," 
interested in improving their condition, but staunchly inimical 
to any extension of political privileges to his subjects. His 
dilemma over the matter of popular education is well shown in 
the following quotation out of his "Self-confessions": "In 
respect to the loud and ever louder demand for popular edu- 
cation by means of improved schools, I find myself in a dis- 
agreeable position which causes me considerable uneasiness. 
It must be granted that popular education is the foundation 
upon which the welfare of the people must rest. A neglected, 
uncouth, illiterate people can be neither a good nor a happy 
people. Therefore I have given the good-schools interest a 
free hand and supported it as far as the economic condition of 
the state allowed. I have also been pleased to hear the many 
reports of progress in the Prussian territories. I have also had 
satisfaction in hearing the comparison made between my own 
land, in which the great majority of the children receive in- 
struction, and other lands of Europe in which no schools what- 
ever exist. 

"But just where educational conditions are most advanced, 
all kinds of doubts and forebodings force themselves upon me. 
May one ask himself regarding popular education whether or 
not it has its limits? If it has no bounds, then we are not 
justified in interfering with, hindering, or restricting its devel- 
opment, but must let it take its natural course. That, how- 
ever, I cannot approve without reservations. The answer be- 
comes still more difficult when one wishes to set up limitations 
and then tries to say where they are to be and whether or not 
they can be established. 
^ "We do not confer upon the individual or upon society 



144 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

any benefit when we educate him beyond the bounds of his 
social class and vocation, give him a cultivation which he 
cannot make use of, and awaken in him pretensions and needs 
which his lot in life does not allow him to satisfy." \J 

The old King wished to see his common people happy, 
but he could not see how they could be happy or the state be 
prosperous unless they remained common people and accepted 
the position of social inferiority to which their birth had called 
them. Public education made for the happiness of the com- 
mon people; but, unfortunately, it also had a tendency to 
cause them to aspire to be other than common people. It 
made them want to be merchants, bankers, poets, artists, uni- 
versity professors. It changed them from peaceful, dutiful, 
loyal subjects, working industriously at the vocation to which 
their fathers' birth had committed them, into restless critics of 
the government who talked much about the desirability of a 
Prussian constitution and some form of government through 
which their voices might be heard. No wonder the old King 
was in a dilemma, for his benevolence was checkmated by his 
conservatism. 

Official Conception of Folk Education. — The very nice 
balance which the Prussian government wished to see main- 
tained between cultivation and repression, is shown in the fol- 
lowing General Order sent out by Baron von Altenstein, Min- 
ister of Education, and the Minister of Finance: 

"According to my view of the matter, the primary schools 
have only to work to the end that the common people {das 
Volk): 

"i. May grasp and appreciate the Christian faith, simply 
and according to the gospels, but with vitality and inwardness 
of experience; 

"2. May find in this belief the basis and motive for a 
moral and happy Christian life; 

"3. May be intelligent in regard to all matters within the 
narrow sphere to which God has called them; 

* Tews, Ein Jahrhundert Preussischer Schulgeschichte. 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 145 

"4. ]\Iay learn to express themselves concisely and logi- 
cally in regard to those same matters; 

"5. May be able to express themselves easily and correctly 
upon such more extended experiences as directly touch upon 
their sphere of life; 

"6. May learn to read, write, reckon, and sing; 

"7. May love their rulers and their fatherland, be informed, 
according to the needs of their social position, of the institu- 
tions and laws of their country, be contented with their social 
status, and live peaceful and happy in their lot; 

"8. May learn the indispensable and practically useful 
facts of nature, their application and use, the knowledge of 
hygiene, etc.; 

"9. And, to sum up all very briefly, may know how to 
serve and wish to serve God, the King, the fatherland, and 
themselves with strong, skillful bodies, awakened intelligence, 
and good conscience. 

"According to these principles I regard popular education as 
truly something more than a scanty instruction in the bare in- 
strumentalities of culture — reading, writing, and arithmetic. 
On the other hand I do not think that the principles enunci- 
ated will raise the common people out of the sphere designated 
for them by God and human society. I think rather that they 
are able to make the common man's lot agreeable and profitable 
to him." ^ 

The Liberal Conception of Popular Education. — In 
contrast with the halting assent of the King to a program 
of popular education which was leading he' knew not whither, 
and the statement of his INIinister of Education regarding what 
he thought the folk schools should accomplish and were ac- 
complishing, we may consider briefly the attitude of Adolph 
Diesterweg, one of the most liberal educational leaders of 
his generation. In a description of the conditions of popular 
education in Prussia about 1845,- Diesterweg regards as cause 

^ Tews, Ein Jahrhundert Preussischer Schtdgeschichte . 
^Diesterweg, Heinrich Pesldozzi, Rheinische Blatter, 1845. 



146 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

for congratulation the improved schoolbuildings, the trained 
professional teachers, the liberal curriculum, the mild and 
beneficent discipline, and the patriotic and religious spirit which 
were to be found as characteristics of the primary schools. He 
describes a rich curriculum, including religion, music, arithme- 
tic, reading, language exercises, writing, geography, history, 
and elementary science. He says that the school had become 
an institution for the cultivation of human nature, in which 
men were built from within outward through the sound use 
of school materials and methods. His fundamental pedagogi- 
cal precept was that the young of the human species should be 
led and developed with reason and toward reason to the end 
that they may become truly men. 

Diesterweg certainly looked upon primary education in a 
very different way from von Altenstein. Diesterweg seemed 
to have no intention of maintaining, or trying to maintain an 
established social order. He was not afraid of social change. 
He did not look aghast at the ambition of the children of the 
common people to rise to a better social and political condi- 
tion. Rather he seemed to regard education as the means of 
removing as far as possible the burdensome restrictions which 
poverty and lowly birth imposed upon those children. 

The Actual Conditions. — The real situation in Prussia, as 
far as primary education is concerned, between about 181 7 
and 1840, seems to be that the initial impulse of the heroic days 
of the Regeneration was strongly taken up in the institutions 
and personalities of primary education. The normal schools 
were founded with a liberal curriculum and they retained it 
during the period named above. Von Altenstein was con- 
servative in politics, but hardly a reactionary, and it would 
seem that he did not seriously interfere with the liberal ten- 
dencies of the primary normal schools, which were passed on 
to a considerable portion of the teaching personnel. However, 
as we shall see later, not all the educational leaders of the day 
were in accord with Diesterweg. Indeed, some of the most ar- 
dent propagandists of reaction in public education were found 
among the most important schoolmen. The crisis which arose 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 147 

from this division of attitude occurred after the death of von 
Altenstein and his old master, King Frederick William III, 
in 1840. 

SUvern's proposal of 18 19 to establish an educational ladder 
beginning with the primary school and leading to the university 
was not accepted, for reasons which must by now be per- 
fectly plain. Official, governing Prussia was not ready for 
such a democratic step. Rather the distinction between folk 
education and secondary education tended to be more sharply 
drawn as the years passed. Mention has already been made 
(see p. 131) of the reform of the leaving-examination in 181 2, 
whereby the work of the gymnasium was standardized. At the 
same time the leaving-examination of the gymnasium was ac- 
cepted as a test for university entrance and only those secon- 
dary schools which were classified as gymnasiums were quali- 
fied to present their graduates, without further examination, 
for university matriculation. However, for years the door to 
the universities was kept open by the practice of admitting 
persons to university study who might have passed examina- 
tions given in the university after they had made preparation 
in other ways than through study in and graduation from a 
gymnasium. It was only in 1834 that the monopoly of the 
gymnasium over university entrance was made complete. The 
effect of this change was practically to eliminate the children of 
the common people from professional life and the civil service. 

The Carlsbad Resolutions. — The year 1819, in which 
Suvern's proposed law was submitted to the government, was 
also the year in which the Carlsbad Resolutions were passed 
by the German Diet. Thus the year which saw the most 
liberal development within German school officialdom, saw the 
application of most severe restrictions upon academic freedom 
in German secondary schools and universities. Greatly 
aroused by some minor disturbances among students of the 
universities, Metternich induced the Diet to pass a compre- 
hensive set of measures designed to eliminate root and branch 
in the higher educational institutions ^ any movement in the 
^ See Robinson, Readings in Modern European History, II, pp. 547-50. 



148 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

direction of liberal political thought. These measures were 
to include the appointment for each university of a special 
representative of the government who was to reside in the 
institution. It was to be his function to see to the strictest 
enforcement of existing laws and disciplinary regulations, to 
observe carefully the spirit which was shown by the instructors 
in their public lectures and regular courses, and, without di- 
rectly interfering in scientific matters or in the methods of 
teaching, to give a salutary direction to the instruction, having 
in mind the future attitude of the students. Lastly, he was to 
devote unceasing attention to everything that might promote 
morality, good order, and outward propriety among the 
students. 

The information provided by the special agents was to enable 
the government to remove from the universities or other 
pubHc educational institutions "all teachers who, by obvious 
deviation from their duty, or by exceeding the limits of their 
functions, or by the abuse of their legitimate influence over- 
youthful minds, or by propagating harmful doctrines hostile to 
public order or subversive of existing governmental institutions, 
shall have unmistakably proved their unfitness for the impor- 
tant office intrusted to them." No instructor expelled for such 
cause was to be eligible for appointment in any other public in- 
stitution in any country represented in the Diet. 

The Carlsbad Resolutions also reaffirmed the laws against 
student societies, especially the Burschenschajten, which had 
had their origin in the dark days following the Peace of Tilsit 
and were impregnated with a strong patriotic sentiment. Any 
one found to belong to such a society was to be expelled from 
the university and could not be matriculated at any other 
German university. Membership in such societies was also 
declared by the resolutions to be a permanent disbarment from 
public office. 

An Estimate of National Education in Prussia. — Our 
final estimate of the educational system developed in Prussia 
between 1807 and 1840 must find place for diverse and, in some 
cases, conflicting elements. It was national to an extent un- 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 149 

realized either at that time or for a half-century thereafter in 
any other country of Europe. Its plan of organization in- 
cluded schools for the common people, and schools for the 
intellectual and social leaders in the state. It included also an 
effective system of administration extending in a well-knit hier- 
archy from the minister of education down to the teacher in 
the lowest school, with adequate executive, advisory, and in- 
spectional functions provided for. There could be no doubt 
that the education system had its place in the state system of 
administration on the same basis as the army, the police, or 
the judiciary. The teacher in the school held his commission 
from the state and was expected to be loyal to the government 
just as was the officer in the army. The spirit of instruction 
was to a considerable extent religious, but religion also was a 
function of the government and was conceived of as an effective 
means to social security and political conservatism. "God, 
King, and fatherland," love and service of which the schools 
were expected to foster, were regarded as a trinity, the mem- 
bers of which were more or less equal, equivalent, and inter- 
changeable. Furthermore, the formation of the proper attitude 
toward "God, King, and fatherland" was not left to casual 
chance or to any general expectation of satisfactory results, 
but the exercises of the school in religion, the German lan- 
guage, history, and music were definitely and specifically di- 
rected toward securing the loyalty of each child of the kingdom. 
The entire school system was intended to serve "as a nursery 
of blameless patriotism." 

It is of very great significance for the subsequent social 
and political history of Germany, and particularly of Prussia, 
that the thoroughgoing organization of a national system of 
education in Prussia occurred at a time when Prussia had 
barely emerged from strictly feudal institutions and attitudes. 
In a country without any system of popular representation, 
even as modified by conditions of wealth or birth, the installa- 
tion of a strong bureau of education represented simply an 
extension of the King's arm and constituted an additional force 
at his command for controlling the thought and actions of his 



150 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

people. The various councils and the different grades of 
executives did not reflect in any sense the will or feeling of a 
majority, but were rather appointees of an irresponsible cen- 
tral government and a part of a hand-picked bureaucracy. It 
is easily seen that a national system of education imposed upon 
a people without any political rights or representative institu- 
tions, could with a change in the kingship result in an instru- 
mentality of repression or in an agency making for the spread 
of enlightenment and individual freedom. In this respect, 
Prussia stands out in sharp contrast with France, where the 
Napoleonic ambition to impose a national system of education 
upon the French people in the interests of his own power, was 
defeated by reason of the even division of responsible and 
influential public opinion. 

ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical Background. — Hayes, A Political and Social 
History of Modern Europe; Hazen, Europe Since 18 is; Marriott and 
Robertson, The Evolution of Modern Prussia. 

Education Sources. — A rich collection of .source material for the 
period is to be found in Lewin, Entwicklung der Preussischen Volks- 
schule; Fichte, Reden an die Deutsche Nation; Cousin, Public Instruc- 
tion in Prussia, tr. by Austin; Stowe, The Prussian System of Public 
Instruction; Horace Mann, Seventh Annual Report of the State Board 
of Education, Massachusetts. 

Secondary Accounts. — Alexander, The Prussian Elementary Schools; 
Cubberley, History of Education; Kandel, The Training of Elementary 
School Teachers in Germany; Lewin, Entwicklung der Preussischen 
Volksschule; Paulsen, German Education Past and Present; Paulsen, 
Geschichte des Gelehrten Unterrichts; Russell, German Higher Schools; 
Tews, Ein Jahrhundert Preussischer Schulgeschichte. 



CHAPTER IX 

MIDCENTURY POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS 

AND THEIR EFFECTS ON PUBLIC 

EDUCATION (1840-1871) 

The Advent of a New Political Period, — With the death 
of the venerable King Frederick William III in 1840, a new 
political period began in Prussian and German national life. 
The rigid censorship of the press, the lack of opportunity for 
public assembly, the close control exercised by the government 
over the utterances of university professors in regard to politi- 
cal matters, together with the absence of representative insti- 
tutions in Prussia, had been tolerated, more or less quiescently, 
by the intellectual groups of the middle class. It may even be 
said that the common people hardly noticed these restrictions, 
for they had never been used to anything else and no pro- 
nounced change of economic life, except perhaps in the Rhine- 
land, had intervened to make them conscious of lack of politi- 
cal freedom. The accession of the new King -Frederick Wil- 
liam IV may be taken as the beginning of a period of active 
agitation for representative political institutions and for a 
recognition of certain fundamental rights of the citizen, such 
as freedom of speech and the press, freedom of assembly, and 
freedom from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. The move- 
ment in the direction of liberalized institutions in Prussia was 
joined with a very strong effort to weld a united German state 
out of the political fragments whose lack of cooperation, mutual 
jealousy, and general impotence left them the natural prey of 
their greater neighbors. At no period of German and Prussian 
history were the two political motives of democracy and na- 
tionalism so closely joined together as during the first ten 
years after the accession of Frederick William IV. 

151 



152 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

The New King's Political Attitude. — In spite of the 
repression which had been systematically practiced following 
the Carlsbad Decrees (see p. 147) liberal sentiment in Germany 
had made considerable progress among the intellectual and the 
upper middle classes. This was particularly true in the Rhine 
provinces of Prussia and the South German states, which have 
always exhibited traces of the bath of democracy they re- 
ceived during the French Revolution and under Napoleon I. 
It seemed as if the new king was in sympathy with the new 
forces of public opinion. He loosened the censorship of the 
press, recalled certain distinguished Liberals to university and 
civil posts from which they had been driven during the pre- 
ceding period of oppression, and, in many ways, showed that 
he was opposed to the petty interference with personal liber- 
ties which had been in vogue before his time. 

However, the new king wished for a sort of political reform 
that rested on mediaeval conceptions of kingly benevolence. He 
wished to see political representation achieved through a re- 
newal and strengthening of the Provincial Diets and the in- 
stitution of a central body of representatives of the local Diets 
which was to serve in an advisory capacity to the king, but 
was to have little or no power to originate legislation and no 
power to block the will of the sovereign. He was violent in 
his denunciation of written constitutions, which would come 
between the king and his "children." No more staunch ad- 
herent to the "divine right of kings" conception has ever oc- 
cupied the Prussian throne. Frederick William IV was appre- 
ciative of a political change which the last decades had brought 
about and was willing to recognize the new conditions — but 
only in his own way, which was thoroughly mediaeval. If 
a parliament was conceived of as a body representative of static 
social units petitioning for rights, or as an advisory body, giv- 
ing advice when asked, he was in favor of such an institution. 
But it was only the pressure of violent revolution that ever 
caused him, for a short time during 1848, to accept a legisla- 
tive body actually representative of the people and to which 
the government was responsible. 



REACTION IN EDUCATION 153 

The Revolution of 1848. — The succession of events lead- 
ing up to the decisive conflict between the liberal and the re- 
actionary forces in and after 1848, began with the desire of the 
Prussian government to secure a loan to meet the cost of con- 
structing state railways. In 1842 the King called a committee 
of delegates from the Provincial Estates and asked their 
authority for the loan. This the committee refused to give, 
thinking that it lay outside of their powers. Baffled in this 
attempt, the King in 1847 called a meeting of all the Pro- 
vincial Estates in Berlin under the name of the United Pro- 
vincial Diet. This body was to serve as a kind of advisory 
council to the King, but was to have no initiative in legislation 
and was to be called only at the discretion of the King. The 
Diet held out for a real representative body and refused the 
King's demand for the railway loan. Neither side would give 
in, and the Diet was dismissed. 

Meanwhile events in South Germany were stimulating the 
spirit of revolution and Europe as a whole was in unstable 
political equilibrium. The success of the February Revolution 
(1848) in France caused the fires of revolution to spread 
throughout the South German states, to flare out in Italy, and 
to burn with such violence in Vienna as to threaten for a time 
the overthrow of the Austrian government and ihe disruption 
of the Austrian state. In March the growth of radical feeling 
in Berlin was rapid. After some street fighting the King on 
March 17 yielded to the revolutionaries and called a meeting 
of the United Diet which was to propose a representative con- 
stitutional government for Prussia. A few days later he called 
for the popular election of members to a national Constituent 
Assembly which was to propose a form of federated national 
government for the German states. This body known as the 
Frankfort Parliament met at Frankfort the following May. 

We can thus see that within the years 1848 and 1849 two 
constitutional gatherings were deliberating over the political 
destinies of Prussia and Germany. The United Diet at Berlin 
was engaged in an endeavor to formulate a plan of government 
whereby Prussia might be made a modern state, with a gov- 



154 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

ernment responsive to the will of the people. The National 
Assembly at Frankfort was striving to formulate a system 
of federated control by means of which a single, unified 
government might be provided for all the German states. In 
both assemblies, the principles of democracy controlled the 
deliberations and conclusions of the members. 

Failure of the Revolution. — The sittings of the United 
Diet and the Frankfort Parliament were without any positive 
practical results. 

The nationalistic movement broke against the impossibility 
of reconciling the claims of Austria and Prussia for leadership 
in the German nation to be formed out of the fractional Ger- 
man states. It did not seem feasible to admit the Slavic popu- 
lations of the Dual Monarchy to membership in the German 
nation, and Austria refused both to be divided and to allow 
a German nation to be formed without her participation. Thus 
the project of nationalization split in 1848 on a point of prac- 
tical politics which could not be decided by the processes of 
parliamentary debate. The natural leaders of German politics 
were Austria and Prussia. Austria found it to be in line with 
her policy to discourage a close union among the other German 
states including Prussia. Accordingly, the only hope of na- 
tionalization lay in the leadership of Prussia and the practical 
elimination of Austria from German affairs. And that meant 
one thing only — war. It was Bismarck who saw and accepted 
this alternative in the sixties. 

The meeting of the United Diet in Berlin as a National 
Assembly had not succeeded in formulating a new constitution 
for Prussia before the King had taken courage from the suc- 
cess of Austria in putting down her revolutionaries. In No- 
vember 1848 the King dismissed the "constitutional" ministers 
who had been forced upon him and turned to his army for 
support. The army throughout the entire year of revolution 
had been loyal to the King and the government and its officers 
had been only contemptuous of the King's weakness in bowing 
before the popular tumult. A few days later the Assembly 
was prorogued to meet at Brandenburg. When the Assembly 



REACTION IN EDUCATION 155 

refused to budge, the army took charge of the situation and 
the constitutional convention was at an end. On the same 
day, a constitutional charter which embodied the King's con- 
ception of representative government was published by royal 
edict. The following year elections were held according to 
the terms of this instrument and the representatives of the 
people met to revise the constitution granted by the King. 
After fruitless discussion and much friction between the King 
and the Chambers, the latter were dismissed. The constitu- 
tion as finally promulgated by the King in 1850 was the system 
of government which continued in force in Prussia up to the 
signing of the armistice in 1918. 

The Constitution of 1850. — By the terms of the Constitu- 
tion of 1850, the supremacy of the crown was assured. The 
King was given the power of appointing the ministers, who 
were to be responsible, not to the legislature, but to himself. 
The powers of the legislative body were limited to the con- 
sideration and amendment of bills proposed by the King's 
government, and the King retained the right to veto any bill 
passed. The legislature consisted of two houses, namely a 
House of Lords (Herrenhaus), all members of which were 
hereditary, ex officio, or appointive by the crown, and a House 
of Representatives {Abgeordnetenhaus) , elected on principles 
of double election and a three-class suffrage. All adult males 
were to be allowed to vote for electors to choose the members 
of the House of Representatives, but the voters were to be 
divided into three classes on the basis of the amount of taxes 
paid by each. The voters, or voter may be, who paid the 
first third of the total amount of taxes for a given district, 
constituted one class. And so for those who paid the second 
and the last third of the total amount of taxes. Each of 
these groups voted separately for its own representatives to 
a convention whose business it was to elect the members of the 
lower house. It is seen that this system was a very frank 
effort to place a preponderance of political power in the hands 
of the wealthy and to keep it out of the hands of the great 
mass of city artisans and agricultural toilers. The Constitu- 



156 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

tion of 1850 was thus not in any real sense based on universal 
suffrage, because the votes were of very unequal value. The 
vote of a single great landowner or industrial magnate was 
given as much weight as the combined votes of hundreds of 
the peasants on his estate or of the workmen in his factory. 
Prussia came down through the last half of the nineteenth 
century and well into the twentieth with this his much restricted 
type of suffrage and a form of constitutional government 
which left the crown practically absolute in its control over 
public policies. This fact is significant not only for an under- 
standing of Prussian life since 1850, but for the better appre- 
ciation of German institutions as a whole, because Prussia has 
been a dominant power in the new Germany since 1870 and 
has impressed her own political nature in an unmistakable 
way upon the German nation. 

Midcentury Intellectual Movements. — So far we have 
considered the character and activities of Frederick William IV 
only from the standpoint of political movements. In order 
to understand the educational developments of the period 
1 840- 1 8 70, it will be equally necessary to note his reaction 
to certain religious and intellectual tendencies of his time. 
The first thirty or forty years of the nineteenth century felt 
the predominance of idealistic philosophy. Hegel came to have 
almost the same standing in the Prussian secondary schools 
and universities as Aristotle enjoyed during the early Middle 
Ages. His philosophy was spoken of officially as the true 
philosophy and was generally accepted in intellectual circles 
as a valid description of reality. Hegel had come to a very 
satisfactory compromise with revealed orthodox religion, for 
in his system of thought the Christian religion was placed at 
the highest point of evolution of the Divine Idea in the realm 
of spirit, where it existed as a more imaginative, more emo- 
tional counterpart of pure philosophy. Thus Hegel's system 
absorbed orthodoxy and found a safe and honorable place for 
it in a rigidly philosophical description of reality. According 
to Hegel there was no possible conflict between religious faith 
and philosophical insight. 



REACTION IN EDUCATION 157 

In the thirties, however, men began to turn away from the' 
idealism of Hegel and Schelling, and by the forties the tide of 
reaction against speculative philosophy was at flood. Scholars 
began lO distrust the formulation of grandiose speculative 
systems and to take up the patient, careful business of scien- 
tific research. Science became a matter of the laboratory and 
not of the poet's flight. History was studied more and more 
exclusively from the original sources. Theology adopted the 
methods of historical criticism. By the fifties, Hegel was as 
much the object of anathema as in the twenties he had been 
the revered object of intellecual obeisance. 

We may perhaps best appreciate the turmoil which ensued 
in religious quarters upon the beginnings of higher criticism 
by recalling the excitement, the disgust, the fiery denunciation, 
which some of our older contemporaries exhibited years ago 
when the claims of textual and historical criticism of the Bible 
first came to their notice. But even that is not a satisfactory 
analogy, for in our times those conceptions had become more 
or less familiar. Imagine the shock of outraged sensibilities 
that must have ensued upon the publication in 1835 of Strauss 's 
Lebcn Jesu or of the works of Baur and the so-called TUbingen 
school. It was a period when cold-blooded science and the 
critical historical spirit laid hands upon the sacred Christian 
tradition and defiled all of its treasures, casting into doubt or 
contempt all that men had lived by and held dear. We have 
come through that time, and realize that, after all, the essen- 
tials of religion are not affected by the application of the 
standards of science and historical criticism to the Bible or 
the person of the Christ. But in the middle of the century, 
the saving of all that was best in our Christian civilization 
seemed to the orthodox believer to be tied up indissolubly 
with the refutation of the newer and more dangerous heresies 
of "higher criticism." Frederick William IV, in company 
with many, probably most, of his official family and of the 
members of the influential social classes, was a vigorous and 
spirited opponent of the new attack on the ancient faith. 
Personally, the King was a deeply religious character, loyal 



158 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

to the Church, active in his observance of religious ceremo- 
nials, and profoundly convinced of the socia! importance of 
piety among his people. 

Joined with the intellectual prepossessions of the ruling 
classes in favor of orthodoxy in religion, was an equally firm 
and consistent opposition on their part to the new socialistic 
theories, which were rapidly gaining currency in the various 
capitals of Europe in the fourth and fifth decades of the last 
century. Karl Marx, whose name is generally to be taken as 
a symbol of classical socialism, was the most influential German 
representative of the new political and economic theory. We 
can get some idea of the fear which the socialistic tenets 
aroused in the minds of sober, respectable, property-owning 
persons in the thirties and forties by recalling the recent hys- 
teria in American public life over Bolshevism and "red" doc- 
trines. Only in the fifties the ideas were new and conse- 
quently more terrifying, implying as they did political control 
on the part of untutored laborers under the harebrained leader- 
ship of university dreamers and poor garret-cats who had made 
a failure of the main business of life, which was to get money 
or its equivalent in position. 

Let us add that the two sets of radical ideas, religious and 
social, coalesced to a certain degree in the same persons. In- 
tellectuals, who accepted the new religious apostasy, were 
inclined to be liberal in politics, and no sharp lines were drawn 
among the various shades of political liberalism. Any tendency 
to change the established political and social order was suspect. 
On the other hand, the radical political groups were in prin- 
ciple opposed to the church as a bulwark of conservatism and 
the established order, and to orthodox religion as a council 
of submission to the divinely established authority set over the 
common people. 

Official Repression of Religious and Political Heresy 

The political and intellectual situation which we have been 
at pains to describe at some length must be understood if the 



REACTION IN EDUCATION 159 

educational developments in Prussia in the reign of Frederick 
William IV^ are to become at all intelligible. From the very 
first days after his accession to the throne until insanity 
caused him to lay down the reins of government, the King 
showed his intention to combat by all the powers he had under 
his control, the new and dangerous tendencies in religion and 
politics. The old Minister von Altenstein, who had shown 
himself, on the whole, friendly to the expansion of the primary 
schools and had allowed secondary education to develop along 
broad neo-humanistic lines, died in 1840, and as his suc- 
cessor the new King appointed von Eichhorn. By Eichhom 
and his assistants, the schools were considered exclusively from 
the political and religious point of view and they endeavored 
from the first to make them sound in both relationships. 

Attack on the Teachers Seminaries. — The center of the 
conservative, or reactionary, attack, as one chooses to name it, 
was the training given prospective primary school-teachers in 
the normal schools or seminaries. As early as December, 1840, 
a ministerial circular expressed the governrnent's disapproba- 
tion of the current agitation among teachers for a dissolution 
of the existing close alliance between the State and the Church. 
It also placed the blame for this and other evils upon the over- 
ambitious programs of studies followed in the normal schools. 
The normal schools, it was said, were giving their students a 
learned education superior to that, in many cases, of pastors 
and of teachers in secondary schools. Such an education 
could only arouse ambitions in the recipient which could not 
possibly be realized in his calling and which would only make 
him discontented with his position in life and an infectious 
spot of discontentment for others. Thus the normal schools 
were failing to reach the expectations of the law-giver and 
were doing a disservice both to their pupils and the primary 
schools. The pupils were being estranged in their manner of 
thinking and their mode of dress and living from the severely 
simple conditions of existence as village school-teachers. "I 
am convinced," the circular runs, "that, as is true of all schools, 
but especially of the Volksschuleii, they must concentrate 



i6o NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

their efforts first upon the revealed truths of Christianity, and 
then upon modesty in the demand for the enjoyments of Hfe, 
upon fidelity to their vocational duties, and upon the virtues 
which result from neighborly affection, and, finally, upon that 
knowledge which is a part of human culture and which ad- 
vances and ennobles existence. Upon those conditions they 
will be able to form a sound and contented generation." ^ 

As a counterbalance to the too-ambitious academic pro- 
grams, the government in 1842 introduced horticulture as a 
required subject in the normal schools. A little later (1844), 
a circular prohibited to the normal school students the dele- 
terious unsupervised browsing in the institutional libraries 
which had been taking their attention from more worthy ob- 
jects. It was made a special task for the inspectors to see 
that only the "best" books were to be found in those libraries, 
and to find out what books were in the personal possession 
of the teachers and warn them against the reading of harmful 
literature. Special warning was conveyed against the use of 
Dinter's "School Teachers' Bible." Eichhorn's interference 
in normal school affairs reached its climax with the closing of 
the Evangelical Normal School at Breslau as the result of the 
interest which some of the students had exhibited in a course 
in the Polish language, and with the^ismissal_Qf_AdQlf Dies- 
terweg from his post as director of a normal school in Berlin. 
Tews, in the work quoted from above, says that Diesterweg 
was compelled to relinquish his office because "he bore the 
colors of a type of education which aimed at freeing and de- 
veloping the human capabilities of even the poorest child." I 

The Schoolmasters and the Revolution. — It was but 
natural in the revolutionary forties that schoolmasters, who 
had in large part come from the lower social and economic 
classes, should play an important part in the effort of those 
politically submerged portions of the population to gain politi- 
cal recognition. They were able to write and to speak and 
they made large use of the position of advantage which they 

^ Quoted from Tews, Ein Jahrhundert Preussischer Schidgeschichte, 
pp. 1 1 5-6. 



REACTION IN EDUCATION i6i 

thus held in forwarding the cause of liberalism. After the 
fall of Eichhorn, as a result of the events of 1848, a great 
assembly of teachers at Tivoli, near Berlin, addressed a series 
of resolutions to the new government, which were concurred 
in by numerous other meetings of teachers throughout the 
countrj^ Their recommendations included a demand for the 
establishment of a separate ministry for education; the inspec- 
tion of schools by professional schoolmen; the making of 
education exclusively a state matter completely separated from 
official connection with the Church; the organic interrelation- 
ship of education from the folkschool, through the higher 
burgher school, to the gymnasium and the university; the 
establishment of continuation schools and infant schools; the 
recognition and organization of teacher-training establishments 
as a branch of the university, for entrance to which would be 
required a diploma from a higher burgher school or a gym- 
nasium; and the setting up of a minimum salary schedule of 
from 250 to 400 thalers. It is extremely significant to note 
that it was not until 19 19 that many of these recommendations 
were accepted in the Constitution of the German Republic. 

Frederick_William IV on Teachers Seminaries. — How 
suddenly the wind changed in educational quarters is shown by 
the proceedings at a conference of teachers in training col- 
leges held in 1849 under the management of Privy-councillor 
Stiehl after the King had regained control of the government. 
The representatives of the training colleges had been selected 
by the Ministry of Education and the matters to be discussed 
had been drawn up beforehand and submitted for their con- 
sideration. Just what the government expected of this packed 
conference is shown in an address made by the King in person 
at one of the sessions. The address is frequently quoted in 
part, but it is so vivid and reveals so much that it seems worth 
while to give a rather extensive extract from it in this con- 
nection.^ 

"All the misery which has come to Prussia during the past 

^ Original taken from Tews, Ein Jahrhundert Preussischer Schttlge- 
schichte, p. 126. 



i62 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

year is to be credited to you and only you. You deserve the 
blame for that godless pseudo-education of the common people 
which you have been propagating as the only true wisdom 
and by means of which you have destroyed faith and loyalty 
in the minds of my subjects and turned their hearts away from 
me. Even while I was yet Crown Prince I hated in my inner- 
most soul this tricked-out, false education strutting about like 
a peacock, and while I was Regent I made every effort in 
my power to overthrow it. I will go ahead on this beaten 
path without allowing myself to deviate from it. First of all, 
these seminaries every one must be removed from the large 
cities to small villages, in order that they may be kept away 
from the unholy influence which is poisoning our times. And 
then everything that goes on in them must be subjected to the 
closest supervision. I am not afraid of the populace, but my 
bureaucratic government in which up to now I have had proud 
confidence, is being undermined and poisoned by these unholy 
doctrines of a modern, frivolous, worldly wisdom. But as long 
as I hold the sword hilt in my hands, I shall know how to 
deal with such a nuisance." 

Official Reorganization of Seminaries and Folkschools : 
Regulations of 1854. — The Constitution of 1850 promised a 
comprehensive law governing education in the state of Prussia. 
The active agitation for school reform through the promulga- 
tion of such a general education code kept up until Karl von 
Raumer became Minister of Education toward the end of the 
year 1850. He expressed himself as opposed to any immediate 
attempt to draw up a general law and proceeded to show it 
to be superfluous through the introduction of his educational 
policies through official regulations. By means of this weapon 
he waged war on agitation among schoolmen by forbidding 
attendance at the meetings of general educational associations. 
In place of these dangerous meetings he organized conferences 
at the various normal schools, which could be supervised and 
controlled. He made it illegal to publish the educational 
writings of Adolph Diesterweg and Friedrich Froebel, although 
his opposition to the principles of the kindergarten are said to 



REACTION IN EDUCATION 163 

have arisen from the confusion in his mind of Friedrich with 
Karl Froebel, who was a political radical of the day. The 
culmination of this repressive policy and the complete triumph 
in school affairs of the party conservative in politics and or- 
thodox in religion, occurred with the publication of the Regu- 
lations of October i, 2, and 3, 1854/ These orders deal re- 
spectively with the organization and the curriculum of the 
Evangelical normal schools, the schools preparatory to the 
normal schools, and the one-class elementary schools. The 
educational organization resulting from these three Regula- 
tions is highly instructive as an example of a well-thought-out 
and carefully planned effort to use a national system of schools 
for the development of a desired culture among an entire 
people. 

General Principles to Govern Instruction in Teachers 
Seminaries. — The Regulation of October i, relating to the 
Evangelical Seminaries of the Monarchy, states by way of 
preliminary that the day of freedom for them was at an end. 
Hitherto they had been allowed great freedom in organizing 
their curricula and in choosing educational ways and means. 
From now on they were to accept their mission as being the 
preparation of teachers for the primary schools through the 
use of definitely assigned materials and methods of instruc- 
tion. Only when specific permission was given by the govern- 
ment were these limitations to be exceeded. 

The purpose of the seminary being to prepare teachers of 
religion, reading and language, writing, arithmetic, singing, 
home geography and nature study, national history, and draw- 
ing, in the one-class elementary schools, the instruction of the 
students in the seminary was to be limited to the study of the 
subjects he was later on going to teach. The Regulations con- 
demned the former tendency to increase as much as possible 
the sphere of instruction and to give a broad cultural training, 
and they specifically stated thatthe subject-matter of the 
elementary school was^o prevail and govern in every par- 

' These Regulations are given in full in Lewin, Geschichte der Ent- 
wicklung der Preussischen Volksschule, pp. 258-292. 



1 64 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

ticular and to constitute the main province of seminary in- 
struction. The practice-school was declared to be the center 
about which all the work of the seminary should be organized, 
particularly in the last two years. 

A larger principle of education was introduced when the 
Regulation stated the ultimate aim of the normal school to 
be not so much the teaching of facts, but rather the shaping 
of the mind and conscience of the student so that he might 
be properly fitted for his work in the primary schools "which 
are to help train the youth into Christian and patriotic modes 
of thought and into domestic virtues." Accordingly the stu- 
dent, while in the normal school, must be surrounded by a 
certain set of conditions that would form him to a particular 
mould. He must be made sincerely and deeply religious; 
he must be made patriotic; he must be made thorough master 
of the modes of schoolroom experience which he would be 
expected to pass on to his pupils in the primary schools. In 
order to realize the last point, the prospective teacher's ex- 
perience was to be very definitely limited. His instruction 
must take place "according to the same principles and in the 
fundamentals in the very form which the treatment of the 
same subjects would require in the elementary school." Within 
this limited field of subject-matter he was to be trained to 
quick and clear comprehension, clear and accurate reorganiza- 
tion, and simple and correct reproduction of thoughts read and 
heard. Wherever possible, printed manuals were to be made 
the basis of instruction and from the content of these books 
the teacher of teachers was not to diverge by making it the 
subject of criticism or the object of supplementation. 

Distrust of Educational Theory. — The author of the 
/ Regulations of October i, was extremely suspicious of what 
had formerly been taught in the seminaries under the name 
pedagogy, methods, or didactics. This material was a powder 
mine all ready to be set off at any time by an enterprising 
pupil or a "radical" teacher. Hence it was eliminated from 
the new curriculum and two hours a week of Schidkunde 
(school science) were to be substituted for it. This subject in 



REACTION IN EDUCATION 165 

the first year was to deal briefly with the history of the Prus- 
sian primary school and was to include a characterization of 
the good teacher from the moral and religious standpoints. In 
the second year the time w£is to be devoted to problems of 
school management, discipline and some general discussions of 
Christian education. In the third year, the pupils were "to be 
made cognizant of their future duties as servants of the Church 
and the Nation." The remaining instruction of the year in 
this subject was closely tied up with the work of the practice 
school. 

Strong Emphasis on Religious Instruction. — The new 
subject-matter in religion, in view of the danger of too much, 
or even of any, freedom in this field, was to be designated as 
instruction in the catechism. Luther's shorter catechism, or 
where circumstances called for its use, the Heidelberg cate- 
chism, was to be the text studied. What supplementation this 
work required was to be contained in a syllabus, which was 
"completely to comprise in definite form all that which pros- 
pective schoolmasters need to know." It was declared to be 
the business of the teacher in the seminary to expound the 
contents of this syllabus and to have it fully understood and 
possessed by the pupils, without adding any embellishments 
on his own part. Bible history was to be studied from the 
Bible and in the biblical language. Every student was to be 
expected to acquire easy facility in the accurate narration of 
the stories of the Bible. Much reading of the Bible and much 
memory work in connection with its greatest passages were 
prescribed for all students, who were likewise expected to learn 
by heart a considerable collection of church hymns. When 
we come to see a little farther on the importance attached to 
religious instruction in the elementary school, we shall better 
understand why the teacher needed to be grounded so thor- 
oughly in religious lore and equipped with such a ready, exact, 
and quotable knowledge of the catechism, the Bible, and sacred 
hymns as a part of his training. 

Reading and the German Language. — As a part of his 
preparation for teaching children how to read, the seminary 



1 66 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

student was to be drilled in the correct and expressive reading 
of the very same materials that he would be called on to teach 
in the elementary school. He was to be fortified also with the 
knowledge of a good method of teaching reading. An intro- 
duction to German grammar was given in the seminary, even 
though formal grammar was excluded from the curriculum of 
the primary schools. However, philosophical comparative 
grammar was not attempted and only the simpler elements of 
language structure were handled. Control over the student's 
private reading was to be exercised in connection with language 
study. A suitable selection of reading material was to be 
made each year, which was not to include the "so-called classi- 
cal literature." Only that was to be permitted "which by 
reason of its content and attitude was likely to lead to ortho- 
dox church life, Christian morals, patriotism, and reflective 
consideration of Nature." The prescribed list included biog- 
raphies of Luther, Paul Gerhardt, Jacob Spener, and Oberlin, 
Piper's Evangelical Year Book, Schubert's Narratives and 
Lives, a number of People's Books, a Children's Book, Grimms' 
Fairy Tales, Werner Hahn's Patriotic Portraits, Curtmann's 
Fatherland, Vogel's Germania, Miiller's Mirror of Prussia, 
Jahn's History 0} the French Revolution and the War of Lib- 
eration, and a number of geographical, popular scientific, and 
travel books. Certainly this list of books is very instructive 
in regard to the purpose of the study of literature in the nor- 
mal schools. 

History and Geography. — The instruction in history and 
geography was to center in the Fatherland and both subjects 
were to be, as far as possible, interdependent. General history 
was declared to be unfruitful for the seminary student owing 
to his lack of background and the shortness of the time that 
might be spent upon it. y Instead a decidedly pragmatic atti- 
tude was taken toward the use of history as a normal school 
subject. It was declared to be the main business of the semi- 
nary teacher to make his pupil familiar, as he studied the story 
of the past, with memorable events, significant social institu- 
tions, and great personages in the history of Prussia and Ger- 



REACTION IN EDUCATION 167 

many, and thereby to "increase his reverence and love for the ' 
Royal House of Hohenzollern.'^ History was to be taught 
thoroughly and with enthusiasm, and was to be given "fruitful 
connection with the life and viewpoint of the common people."7 
In connection with the study of history, the great national 
anniversaries were to be given special prominence and to be 
used as the means of making the pupil familiar with the best 
selections of patriotic poetry and popular music. 

The ordinary materials of political and mathematical geog- 
raphy were to be included in the course of study, with emphasis 
upon the commercial aspects. Europe and the Fatherland 
were to receive the most attention. Germany was to be treated 
in regard to political and physical conditions in such a way 
that in the description of Prussia, the Fatherland in a special 
sense, and the local province, their peculiarities as to natural 
features, industrial and commercial conditions, and political 
institutions might receive special consideration. 

It would be interesting and valuable from the standpoint of 
the evolution of the methods and processes of teacher training 
to take up in some detail the treatment of the remaining sub- 
jects of the normal school curriculum at this critical point in 
educational evolution. The limited objectives of this study 
suggest, however, that we should be satisfied in this connection 
with some discussion of those subjects in the primary school, 
with the understanding that the work in the normal schools 
was intended to prepare the prospective teacher for teaching 
those subjects in an effective way and was, in general, limited 
to much the same subject-matter as they would later be called 
on to teach. 

The Regulation of October 2 dealt with the work in the in- 
stitutions preparatory to entrance into the normal schools. 
Needless to say it exhibited the same characteristics as those 
shown in the Regulation of October i and that of October 3. 

General Principles Underlying the Conduct of the Pri- 
mary Schools. — The Regulation dated October 3 dealt with 
the place of the primary or folk school in the national economy 
and described the ways and means, methods, and subject- 



1 68 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

matter, whereby it might be made effectively to serve its pur- 
pose. In this general order the one-class elementary school 
was taken as typical and all primary, or folk schools, of more 
than one class were to conform to the general principles laid 
down for the government of the one-class schools. 

The school was recognized as one of a number of social 
institutions and in its external arrangements it was to be co- 
ordinated with local conditions of industry, family, church, 
and civil life. As to the inner life of the school, the writer 
of the official order clearly indicates his standpoint with refer- 
ence to the political and religious unrest of the times. The 
time had definitely arrived, he said, when a decisive change 
was imminent and imperative in political and religious think- 
ing. The elementary schools had been allowed to follow the 
general intellectual trend of the new century in which they 
had been given a new form and a larger development. It was 
now high time, however, to eliminate unauthorized extravagant 
and erroneous elements and to install in their place a truly 
Christian education for the common people. The experience 
of recent years had shown the conception of a common educa- 
tion for all through the development of the mind by means 
of an abstract content, to be worthless or harmful. What the 
life of the common people called for was the reorganization of 
the schools intended for their children on the basis of "the 
original and eternal realities of Christianity, which in its 
authorized ecclesiastical form must support, build up, and 
permeate family, vocational, community, and national exist- 
ence." To that end the folk school must be founded upon the 
practical life as exhibited in those aspects of life and work 
within that circle. And for the realization of its purpose, the 
elaboration of new and different methods of teaching was said 
to be less important than the correct choice and strict limitation 
of the subject-matter of instruction and the adoption of a 
judicious system of school discipline. 

According to the provisions of the new regulations, the reli- 
gious elements in the curriculum were to be increased, six hours 
•weekly being given to this subject. Emphasis was to be laid 



REACTION IN EDUCATION 169 

upon memorizing church hymns, the catechism, and extensive 
selections from the Bible. The school was to cooperate with 
the official church in developing in the children "a clear con- 
ception and a believing acceptance of the principal facts of 
religious education and the eternally true aspects of the hi;Th- 
est divine and human things." The work in reading and the 
German language was to lead to "an ability to read aloud in 
an intelligible manner, to repeat clearly and connectedly what 
one has read, and to express one's opinion toward it in a few 
words." The materials for reading and language work, outside 
of the scriptural materials, were to be found in manuals pre- 
pared for the purpose. Theoretical grammar was not to be 
taught. Instruction in writing and in practical arithmetic 
was provided and singing was emphasized. It was said to be 
the business of the elementary school to have the children able 
at leaving time to sing "the most generally used church tunes 
and as large a number as possible of good popular and espe- 
cially patriotic songs which they will understand and know by 
heart." Three hours a week were allotted to nature study 
and home geography and one hour a week was allotted to 
drawing. Throughout all the instruction given in the folk 
school was to run the spirit of moral and patriotic instruction. 
The teacher was enjoined in the words of the official formula 
to "lead the youth into knowledge of the history of our rulers 
and our people, as also of the divine guidance which has 
revealed itself in the same, and to fill the minds and hearts of 
the pupils with love for their king, and respect for the laws 
and institutions of the Fatherland." 

Influence of the Regulations of 1854. — The Regulations 
of 1854 have in many ways been definitive of the character of 
the Prussian and the German folk school since that time. 
Supplementary regulations given out in 1859 and 1861 slightly 
lessened the amount of memoriter learning expected of stu- 
dents in the normal schools and the primary schools and 
slightly extended the instruction in elementary science and 
arithmetic, but the spirit of the Regulations of 1854 controlled 
Prussian primary education and the work of the teachers' semi- 



170 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

naries until 1872. What is of greater significance, the direc- 
tion given to the education of the children of the common 
people in those days when political liberalism met its decisive 
defeat, held over as a settled national policy until the downfall 
of the Empire and the declaration of a Republic following the 
armistice of 1918. The upper social classes were able to main- 
tain the political and economic control which had come down 
with them out of mediaeval feudalism. Grudgingly, the middle 
class was admitted to a measure of political power by the 
Constitution of 1850, and their influential members were taken 
up into the governing class without any substantial gain for 
the political significance of the common people. The main- 
tenance of the social status quo became for the ruling classes 
the main article of their political creed. 

No general reorganization of the administration of education 
was thought to be required in the fifties, for the efficient bu- 
reaucratic machinery established in the first quarter of the 
century was found adequate to serve a purpose which succeed- 
ing events had not in any essential degree altered. The only 
difference between the two periods lay in this: at the time of 
the reorganization of Prussian life at the beginning of the 
century, liberal political conceptions fought against the old 
conservative habits and institutions and it was uncertain 
whether or not the political forms of Prussia might be changed 
to secure a greater degree of popular representation and 
whether or not the schools of the common people might be 
organized, following the spirit of Pestalozzi, Fichte and von 
Humboldt, so as to furnish a degree of democratic educational 
opportunity. After the defeat of the liberal forces in Prussian 
life in the late forties, there was no longer any doubt as to 
the improbability of a liberal modification of Prussian civil 
and educational institutions. The schools of the common peo- 
ple were schools for a politically insignificant class, whose 
virtues were officially extolled as industry, piety, neighborli- 
ness, patriotism, contentment with their lot, and loyalty to 
the Hohenzollern kings. The ways and means adopted to 
secure the ends of the folk school were highly efficient. That 



REACTION IN EDUCATION 171 

those ends were subversive of sound political life and ran coun- 
ter to the trend of social evolution in the nineteenth century, 
most of us are thoroughly convinced. 

Changes in Secondary Education. — It will not be neces- 
sary for us to attempt any extensive mention of the changes 
which secondary education underwent during the period 1840- 
1871. The secondary schools remained the schools of the upper 
classes who were able to pay for such education for their 
children. Since 1834 the Gymnasien had been the sole means 
of entrance upon university studies, and, accordingly, the sole 
gateway to a professional career or to civil service. An effort 
was made to make the curriculum of the Gymnasien socially 
and politically safe through curtailing the scientific studies, 
lessening the emphasis on Greek and increasing the emphasis 
on Latin of a formal character, and increasing the element of 
dogmatic religious instruction. The efforts of the government 
in this direction are said by Paulsen ^ to have been without 
any substantial results. 

The development of factory industry, which was steady and 
pronounced during the period under consideration, had shown 
the need for more attention to the scientific aspects of the 
curriculum. Many cities had fostered schools which empha- 
sized scientific subjects, but they had remained without official 
recognition. In 1859, however, a regular nine-year secondary 
course was outlined for Realschiden I Ordnung, in which the 
"modern side" was stressed and which gave the privilege of 
pursuing further scientific and professional studies in the 
higher schools of technology. A less fully developed Red- 
schide with a six-year course was also defined by the official 
regulation at the same time. 

Prussia under William I and Bismarck 

In 1857 mental disability compelled Frederick William IV 
to relinquish the kingship. His brother William I became 
regent and in 1861 succeeded to the kingship. The new King 

^ German Education, p. 206. 



172 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

was by profession and temperament a soldier, and he pro- 
ceeded, even during his regency, to make the army strong and 
efficient. In politics, William I was extremely conservative. 
He believed in the Divine Right of kings no less ardently than 
he distrusted the ambitions of the populace to possess a share 
in the government. On the second great point of political 
policy, namely, the formation of a united German nation, he 
believed firmly in the necessity of establishing such a union. 
He believed, furthermore, that in such a national organization 
Prussia ought to take the leadership even at the expense of 
eliminating the German parts of Austria from membership. 

Before the King had gone far in the reorganization of his 
army, he encountered obstinate opposition to that policy in 
the lower house of the Prussian Parliament. The majority 
steadily voted a refusal of the funds necessary to the fulfil- 
ment of the military program. At this critical juncture, the 
King called Count Otto von Bismarck to his aid as Minister- 
President. With a deadlock on the matter of army appropria- 
tions existing between the upper and lower houses of the 
Parliament, Bismarck elaborated the constitutional principle 
that in the case of such a deadlock, the government was privi- 
leged to proceed to carry out its policy as if no parliament 
existed. He carried out the reorganization of the army, using 
funds that had not been voted. 

This new and dominating personality in the King's govern- 
ment was a passionate opponent of political liberalism in all 
its manifestations. During the revolutionary forties he had 
r-tood firm against the tide of democracy. He, too, like his 
King, had bitterly opposed the submerging of Prussia in Ger- 
many, believing that the only hope for German unity lay in 
Prussian supremacy at the expense of Austria. A long diplo- 
matic and public career had made him conversant with Euro- 
pean politics. In the days of the Frankfort Parliament, Bis- 
marck had shown only contempt for the effort made by that 
body to talk the German states into a national union. He saw 
that the opposing ambitions of Austria and Prussia were irrecon- 



REACTION IN EDUCATION 173 

cilable through the ways of diplomacy, and that the issue be- 
tween those two states would be settled only by an appeal to 
arms. As soon as he became Minister-President, every diplo- 
matic move which Bismarck made contemplated the forcible 
elimination of Austria from German politics and the firm union 
of the disparate German states. 

The Formation of the German Empire. — This is not the 
place to attempt to recount in detail the story of the events 
whereby Prussia reached the ascendancy in a united Germany. 
That story may be found in more authoritative and extended 
form in political and social histories. Suffice it to say that 
Bismarck utilized a dispute over the succession to the duchies 
of Schleswig and Holstein to isolate those territories in 1864 
from Denmark under the joint control of Prussia and Austria. 
Taking advantage in 1866 of favorable diplomatic conditions 
which he had done much to create, Bismarck caused Prussia 
to withdraw from the Bund, that loose bond of union 
among German states, which he declared to be the chief 
source of Germany's weakness. He had war declared against 
Saxony, Hanover and Hesse, Austria, and all the other members 
of the Bund. In a short, decisive war Prussia was victorious. 
By the Treaty of Prague, the Bund was declared dissolved and 
Austria was excluded from the North German Confederation 
to be formed of all the German states north of the River Main. 
The territory of Prussia proper was increased by the annexation 
of Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, the free city of Frankfort- 
on-the-Main, and the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein. 

The North German Confederation exhibited in its main 
lines the structure of the German Empire which was com- 
pleted after the Franco-Prussian War. It was a federated 
state in which the constituent members retained important 
rights over internal affairs, but which gave to the federal execu- 
tive, which was hereditary with the crown of Prussia, the con- 
trol of foreign affairs, the right to declare war and make 
peace, and, of course, the supremacy in military affairs. 
Military service was a federal, not a local duty, and it was 



\ 

174 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

universal and compulsory. The institutions of this eariier 
Confederation closely resembled those of the Empire which 
will be described in the next chapter. 

William I became the first president of the North German 
Confederation and he appointed Bismarck chancellor in charge 
of foreign affairs. Bismarck believed war with France to be 
inevitable and prepared to put France as far as possible at a 
disadvantage in the matter of support from other powers. 
When ready for the war, Bismarck found the occasion to pre- 
cipitate it, — even to get France to declare war first. The out- 
break of the war caused Baden, Bavaria, and WUrtemburg to 
join the side of the North German Confederation and thus 
removed the last obstacle to their union with the other German 
states. The results of the Franco-Prussian war are soon told. 
The carefully trained and completely equipped armies of 
Prussia quickly accomplished the military defeat of France. 
The Treaty of Frankfort laid an indemnity of a billion dollars 
upon France and wrested from her Alsace-Lorraine. This 
forcible separation from the mother country of a large popula- 
tion that was thoroughly French in feeling and institutions has 
been one of the most potent factors in keeping alive the French 
hatred of Prussia. On both sides of the international boundary, 
Alsace-Lorraine was from that time on the incentive for war 
between France and Germany. France smarted under the loss 
of a large and valuable territory and a loyal French population, 
while Germany waited for and prepared against the day of 
France s "revanche." 

Drawn together by the war of 1870-71 the South German 
States threw in their fortunes with the North German Con- 
federation under the leadership of Prussia. On January 18, 
1 87 1, William I accepted from his brother sovereigns in Ger- 
many the title of "Kaiser in Deutschland" and became the 
head of a united German Empire. Thus at last was accom- 
plished the task of unifying Germany which had been a source 
of active agitation since the accession of Frederick William IV 
in 1840. But under what different auspices than the German 
liberals of that day had dreamed of! They had hoped for a 



REACTION IN EDUCATION 175 

peaceful voluntary union of all the German states under a 
constitution that was representative and democratic. Actually 
the process of unification had occurred by means of conscience- 
less diplomacy and three carefully provoked, even though possi- 
bly inevitable, wars; and the new state was under the hege- 
mony of Prussia, with her backward, unrepresentative political 
institutions and her resplendent record of military success. 

ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical Background. — Hayes, A Political and Social 
History of Modern Europe, Vol. II; Hazen, Europe Since 1815; Marriott 
and Robertson, The Evolution of Modern Prussia. 

Education Sources. — Much material given in Lewin, Entwicklung 
der Preussischen Volksschule. 

Secondary Accounts. — Alexander, The Prussian Elementary Schools: 
Kandel, The Training of Elementary School Teachers in Germany; 
Lewin, Entwicklung der Pretissischen Volksschule; Paulsen, German 
Education Past and Present; Russell, German Higher Schools; Tews, 
Ein Jahrhundert Preussischer Schidgeschichte. 



CHAPTER X 
PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 

Prussia in the Empire. — The new Empire did not exhibit 
the submergence of Prussia in Germany, but represented 
rather the extension of Prussian influence over the entire 
nation. The constitution of the new Empire gave Prussia a 
degree of power and prominence that was consistent with her 
territory, her population and her leadership in bringing about 
national unity. It is beyond question that Prussian institu- 
tions controlled the Empire and it is, on the whole, accurate 
to say that a description of the educational changes in Prussia 
, since 187 1 may be taken as indicative of the trend of educa- 
tion in the Empire. Accordingly, the main emphasis in our 
narrative will continue to be upon Prussian political and edu- 
cational developments. 

The Imperial Constitution. — It will be necessary, if we 
are to understand the political quality of German national life, 
to consider briefly the Imperial constitution. According to its 
terms, the Prussian King was to be ex officio Emperor in 
Germany. His chief administrative officer as Emperor was the 
Chancellor, appointed by him and responsible to him alone. 

The imperial legislature consisted of two houses. The upper 
house, or Bundesrat, was directly representative of the twenty- 
six states of the federation. Its members were appointed by 
the governments of the constituent states and cast their votes 
according to instructions received from their governments and 
as a unit. Prussia, with seventeen votes out of a total of 
fifty-six, had a great deal of influence. According to a consti- 
tutional provision, Prussia alone possessed enough votes in the 
Bundesrat to block any effort at revision of the constitution. 
This body was the means whereby the larger states ruled the 

176 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 177 

Empire. It possessed important legislative, administrative, and. 
judicial functions. 

The lower house, the Reichstag, was elected on the basis of 
manhood suffrage. It possessed a veto on legislation and the 
right to initiate legislation which it practically never used. 
It voted appropriations, together with the Bundesrat, and its 
consent had to be secured to the imposition of new taxes. The 
popular influence that could be exerted through the Reichstag 
was greatly limited by the fact that the government was not 
responsible to the legislative body, as ministries did not fall 
when majorities were against them. This lack of real power 
caused the Reichstag to serve only as a debating society and 
as a mirror of public opinion, rather than as an influential 
organ of popular control. Thus in spite of the election of its 
members by manhood suffrage, the Reichstag was able to 
represent the popular will only in very feeble fashion. 

The constitution of the Empire gave the legislature and the 
executive, power over the army and navy, foreign affairs, com- 
merce and transportation, postal and telegraph service, and 
called for the preparation of an imperial code of civil and 
criminal law. The various states were allowed to retain au- 
tonomy over all matters not specifically mentioned as delegated 
to the Empire. Education was one of the provinces of adminis- 
tration that was left in the hands of the separate states, with 
certain slight exceptions that will be mentioned later. 

Dominance of Prussia in the National Life. — The key to 
an understanding of the political conservatism of Germany 
under the Empire lies in an appreciation of the preponderant 
influence of Prussia in German national life and a recognition 
of the impotence of representative institutions of that country. 
The constitution of 1850 ruled Prussia up to the signing of 
the armistice in 1918, and Prussia ruled Germany. By means 
of the controlling influence given to the wealthy commercial, 
industrial, and land-owning classes of Prussia, every effort at 
liberalizing the political institutions of that state was success- 
fully resisted, and, with power secure in Prussia, the ruling 
caste was able to maintain unmodified a highly aristocratic and 



178 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

unrepresentative set of political institutions in the nation as a 
whole. 

Prussia historically was the most militaristic of all the Ger- 
man states. Her enthusiasm for military organization and 
strength was increased by the events of the sixties and the 
success of Prussian arms in the Franco-Prussian War. The 
unification of Germany, no less than the humiliation of foreign 
enemies, was a direct result of military prowess, and the new 
Empire, following the lead of Prussia, adopted the Prussian 
military system and made compulsory service under the colors 
a national, not a local, obligation. The Prussian King, as 
head of the Imperial army, made that army efficient after the 
Prussian pattern and introduced into the Empire as a whole 
an enthusiasm for military power which formerly had been 
characteristic mainly of Prussia. 

Foreign Policies to 1890. — With the unification of Ger- 
many secured, Bismarck, as Chancellor in charge of foreign 
affairs, consciously adopted the conception that Germany was a 
"satiated" state. He had no ambition to extend the bounda- 
ries of Germany, and he considered the main objectives of 
statecraft to be the stimulation of German industry, commerce, 
and agriculture and the improvement of internal economy and 
domestic administration. With these purposes in mind, the 
diplomacy of Bismarck was successfully exerted for the main- 
tenance of peace from the time when he became Imperial 
Chancellor in 1871 until his forced resignation in 1890. 

Bureaucratic Administration of the Empire. — German 
domestic politics has been generally petty and lacking in 
interest, mainly owing to the fact that the constitution of the 
Empire gave no real opportunity for the competition of op- 
posing political ideas and the development of statesmanlike 
qualities in the leaders of the popular parties. The adminis- 
tration of the Empire was an effective bureaucracy, in most of 
the details of its organization and conduct completely insulated 
against popular interference. The early years of the Empire 
saw the enactment of comprehensive codes of civil and crimi- 
nal procedure, the establishment of a uniform coinage and 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 179 

currency system based on the gold standard, the establishment 
of the Imperial Bank and a uniform system of banking, the 
foundation of the Imperial Railway Office with vast powers 
over the network of railways covering the whole Empire, and 
finally, the successful inauguration of one of the most efficient 
postal and telegraphic systems in the world. The influence of 
all of these changes was to introduce efficiency into those as- 
pects of political administration which most closely condition 
economic expansion. 

Economic Expansion under the Empire. — The real his- 
tory of the German Empire is the history of its economic de- 
velopment. Its domestic political incidents are relatively in- 
significant beside the story of the rapid and stupendous growth 
of its industrial and economic life. In 1870 Germany had 
hardly felt the change in industrial production which is gen- 
erally referred to as the industrial revolution. England had 
experienced the change from the domestic to the factory system 
of production between the years 1785 and 1830 and France 
by 1848 had undergone the same process of industrial change. 
The factory organization of German industry began in earnest 
only with the establishment of the Empire. In the twenty or 
thirty years following upon national unification, the German 
adaptation of factory methods had run its full course, and by 
1 9 10 Germany had become a dangerous rival of England, the 
leading manufacturing nation in the world. 

In 1870 the population of Germany was predominantly 
rural, while in 19 10, 60 per cent of her population lived in 
towns of 2000 population or over. In that same period her 
population had increased from forty-one to more than sixty-five 
millions. In 1870 even the relatively small population of that 
time had difficulty in maintaining itself on German soil and 
thousands of emigrants were yearly leaving the homeland for 
foreign countries where economic hopes were brighter. In 1885 
alone about 171,000 Germans emigrated to foreign lands. It 
is an interesting commentary on the industrial development of 
Germany that, in spite of an increase of about 60 per cent in 
population since 1870, the tide of emigration had been so 



i8o NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

completely stopped, that in 19 14 fewer than 12,000 persons 
left Germany to make homes elsewhere. In 1880 Germany 
had a foreign trade per capita of $31, while the United King- 
dom had a foreign trade per capita of $100. In 19 10, the 
figures had changed to $62 and $126 respectively for Germany 
and Great Britain, which represents a 100 per cent increase 
for the former country and a 26 per cent increase for the latter. 

While Germany is rather richly endowed with the mineral 
resources which enter so largely into industrial production, her 
economic growth has been mainly owing to the applications of 
science and art to the processes of production and to the 
development of factory and business organization in the inter- 
ests of efficiency and economy. It is mainly in the field of 
elaborative industry that Germany's progress has been achieved. 
Her economic success has come from the kind of trained labor 
that takes a bar of crude iron and turns it into watch-springs, 
or that utilizes the by-products of the coal-tar industry for the 
manufacture of aniline dyes. Whatever scientific management, 
technical training, and industrial skill could do for the im- 
provement of conditions of manufacture they have been called 
upon to do in Germany. There is no country in the world 
that has shown the same degree of industry and perseverance 
in the utilizing of science in the cause of production as has 
Germany since 1870. 

From the outset of the new national regime, the national 
significance of business was recognized and all through its 
history the Imperial Government was actively concerned in 
the improvement of means of transportation, the winning of 
new markets in the other countries of the world, the stabilizing 
of the sources of credit, and, in short, in all the political as- 
pects of economic progress. Not a small share of the credit 
to be given for Germany's rapid progress along economic lines 
is due to the government, which gathered together a body of 
trained and expert civil servants and utilized all their knowl- 
edge and insight in the guidance and stimulation of a complex 
industrial organism. 

The Response of Education to Industrial Needs. — The 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-191S 181 

economic development of Germany under the Empire falls into 
two rather clearly defined periods. Up to about 1890, G er- 
many's problem seemed to be altogether a domestic one. 5he 
began so far behind her European competitors that her first 
task was to utilize her own resources and employ her own 
man-power. A special aspect of this problem was the improve- 
ment of the individual workman through technical education. 
Germany had made considerable beginnings in the matter of 
technical education before the founding of the Empire. Her 
lower secondary schools, with their emphasis upon science and 
mathematics, were scattered through all the more important 
towns, and as early as i^^j^uihe Prussian Government had 
classified the "modern'' side schools and opened to those of the 
higher rank the opportunity of serving as preparatory schools 
for higher technological studies. Even the trade school was a 
well-known German institution before the economic expansion 
of the seventies and eighties. It is difficult to give a systematic 
account of the development of vocational education in Ger- 
many, because, contrary to general opinion on the subject, most 
of the vocational schools in that country have developed out 
of local initiative. Germany was a land of schools before it 
was a land of factories. When it became a land of factories, 
schools sprang up overnight to minister to the vocational needs 
of the new industry. Towns, local manufacturing organiza- 
tions, provincial governments, administrative counties, and the 
states themselves cooperated in the organization of trade 
schools, commercial schools, lower technical schools, and higher 
technological institutions. The universities answered the new 
economic need by means of their courses in the sciences, in 
commerce, in engineering. From the lowest form of trade 
training to the highest and most technical training for the 
industrial engineer, Germany multiplied opportunities for the 
acquisition of that vocational preparation that would make the 
workman more employable or the manager more competent. 

The Vocational Continuation School. — The typical in- 
stitution which has been developed in Germany for the train- 
ing of the workman is the continuation school. These schools 



i82 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

take the young apprentice for a few hours a week, in many 
cases during the regular hours of employment, and give him 
such instruction in German, mathematics, science, drawing, 
and trade practice as will make him more skilful and intelli- 
gent in his work. Historically, the continuation school idea 
goes back far into the nineteenth century. At first it was 
largely intended to supply additional religious training for 
children and adolescents who had left the primary schools. 
Toward the middle of the century, when the old apprenticeship 
system was weakening before the factory system of produc- 
tion, a tendency developed to divert the training given in Sun- 
day and evening schools into industrial lines. In this way the 
general continuation school became an industrial continuation 
school. The Constitution of the North German Federation 
(1869) made compulsory the attendance of workmen under 
eighteen years of age at continuation schools wherever such 
schools existed. The same provision was retained in the con- 
stitution of the Empire. Twelve states out of the twenty-six 
had laws (19 18) requiring the larger towns to maintain such 
schools, and in the other states permissive laws allowed local 
authorities to establish such schools on the basis of compulsory 
attendance. 

The basic institution of the continuation school allows of 
elaboration and modification in the direction of the communi- 
ty's economic need. Where commercial needs are predominant, 
the school provides for additional training in that field. Where 
most of the young persons are doing agricultural or horticul- 
tural work, their training along those lines is furthered. In the 
case of a specialized industrial center training is offered that 
will make the young apprentice better fitted to do the job at 
which he is engaged. In the larger communities, with their 
complex commercial and industrial life, it is probable that an 
extensive system of continuation training will be found which 
is adequate to meet the needs of the community at every point. 
Thus, for example, in Munich, Bavaria, which may be taken 
as an example of the highest development of this form of 
education, there were in 191 1, 46 separate industrial continua- 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 183 

tion schools. A list of 46 continuation schools is possibly not 
very interesting reading, but nothing better than this list can 
illustrate the extent of the system and the care exercised in 
planning details of a comprehensive plan of vocational educa- 
tion of primary grades. Accordingly it is appended herewith 
in full. 

List of Industrial Continuation Schools ^ 
munich, bavaria 

A. Commercial Continuation Schools : 

• I. Druggists, Dealers in Sundries and Dye-stuffs 

2. Commercial Employees 

B. Trade Continuation Schools : 

3. Barbers, Hairdressers, and Wigmakers 

4. Bakers 

5. Workers in the Building Trades 

6. Bookbinders 

7. Printers and Typesetters 

8. Photo-engravers 

9. Decorative Painters, Lacquerers, and Gilders 

10. Turners 

11. Fine Mechanics 

12. Hotel-keepers 

13. Tanners and Glove-makers 

14. Glaziers, and Glass, Porcelain, and Enamel Painters 

15. Woodcarvers 

16. Jewelers. Gold- and Silver-workers 

17. Chimney-sweeps 

18. Confectioners and Pastry-cooks 

19. Coppersmiths 

20. Coachmen 

21. Lithographers and Hthog'raphic printers 

22. Machine Builders 

23. Machinists, Instrument- and Gun-makers 

24. Metal-casters, Chainmakers, Engravers, and Chasers 

25. Butchers 

26. Photographers 

2y. Saddlers and Leather-workers 

28. Coopers 

29. Lock-makers (Building and Artistic Locks) 

30. Blacksmiths 

31. Tailors 

' Taken from Bulletin No. 14, National Society for Promotion of 
Industrial Education, New York, 191 1. 



1 84 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

32. Joiners and Cabinetmakers 

33. Shoemakers 

34. Tinsmiths, Phnnbers. and Sheetmetal-workers 

35. Stucco-workers and Sculptors 

36. Upholsterers and Decorators. Fringe-makers, Cord- 

makers, and Related Trades 

37. Potters and Oven-builders 

38. Watchmakers 

39. Wagonmakers 

40. Tin-casters 

C. Agricultural Continuation Schools : 

41. Gardeners 

D. Otlier Continuation Schools: 

42. Mechanical Dentists 

43. Musicians 

44. Clerks and Office-assistants 

45. District Continuation Schools 

46. Continuation Schools for Student-assistants 



What has been said about the multipHcation of schools for 
the training of the workmen has had its close counterpart in 
the establishment of institutions for the training of foremen, 
managers, technicians, and engineers. 

It would be incorrect to say that there was in the German 
Empire or in the separate states of the Empire a comprehensive 
and state-controlled system of vocational education. It is 
highly correct, however, to say that the German people have 
approximated closely to the ideal of giving each individual 
workman in her industries a degree of supplementary educa- 
tion that will make him employable on higher levels of pro- 
duction, that will enhance the value of his time, that will in- 
crease his pride and intelligence in his work, and bring him 
better wages. 

The Kulturkampf. — The most important issue in Prussian 
domestic policies during the first decade following the estab- 
lishrhent of the Empire grew out of certain developments which 
had taken place in the Catholic hierarchy. Pius IX, who was 
Pope from 1846 to 1878, had good reason to fear for his 
temporal sovereignty in Italy in the face of ever-increasing 
sentiment for national unity in that country. He became, 
following the events of the revolutionary year 1848, a vigorous 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 185 

opponent of the new political liberalism, of the new critical 
attitude in matters of religion, and of the nationalistic move- 
ment in general. His opposition to the new political and 
scientific tendencies of his day culminated in 1864 in the papal 
encyclical Quanta Cura and the Syllabus of Errors, which 
accompanied it. In these publications he condemned the policy 
of the civil state to assert and extend its control over all affairs 
within its boundaries. The conflict between an organization 
like the Catholic Church, which was international in its scope 
and claimed authority over many matters irrespective of na- 
tional boundaries, and the new nation states, which were con- 
solidating their control over all affairs that could in any way 
condition national unity and national strength, was inevitable. 
The Pope denounced the interference of the nation states with 
the control of the Church, in their efforts to make the clergy 
loyal first to the states and secondarily to the Church, in their 
regulation of family life through civil marriage, and in their 
increasing tendency to take education out of the hands of the 
Church and make it a civil function. In 1869-1870, a great 
Council of the Church which met at the Vatican redefined and 
ratified the dogma of papal infallibility. The Pope's cup of 
woe was filled to overflowing when in 1870 the soldiers of the 
new Italian kingdom took Rome and destroyed all but the 
last vestiges of the temporal sovereignty of the Papacy. From 
that time on until his death, Pius IX was unceasing in his 
condemnation of nationalism and political liberalism. 

The Pope's challenge to the supremacy of the civil state was 
immediately taken up by Bismarck in Prussia, and during the 
seventies this conflict, known as the Kulturkampj , occupied 
the stage of domestic politics. In this struggle against the 
Church, Bismarck had the enthusiastic support of the National 
Liberal party. A series of drastic measures directed against 
the Church and the clergy was passed by the Prussian parlia- 
ment. These laws called for the expulsion of the Jesuits, made 
civil marriage compulsory, suppressed the Catholic Bureau in 
the Ministry of Religion, Education and Public Health, placed 
all ecclesiastical seminaries under state control, and made 



i86 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

eligible to church office only those Catholic pastors who were 
German, had been educated in German universities and had 
passed university examinations in German history, philosophy, 
literature, and classics/ and provided for the removal of school 
inspection from the hands of the clergy. 

The School Inspection Law of 1872. — The effect of the 
Kulturkampj upon education in Prussia was considerable. 
One of its immediate consequences, as mentioned above, was 
the passage of the School Inspection Law of 1872. By this law 
the inspection of all public and private educational establish- 
ments was declared to devolve upon the state, and the perform- 
ance of this function of school inspection by any authority or 
official whatsoever was to be regarded as a civil function. The 
law placed the appointment of local and district school in- 
spectors in the hands of the civil authority. Any appointment 
by the state of a supervisor in an honorary or half-time capacity 
was to be revocable at any time. It will be recalled that up 
to that time in Prussia, local school inspection had been 
exercised exclusively by the clergy. The intent of the new law 
was to make it possible for the Minister of Education to dismiss 
any local pastor then acting as district inspector and to replace 
him by means of a secular official. But as the law read it 
might equally well have been taken to mean that all the 
pastors serving as district school supervisors might be con- 
tinued in that capacity and be given the state appointment. 
Falk, the Minister of Education in 1872, applied the law in a 
very moderate way, dispossessing only a small number of 
clergymen from their postsi as inspectors of schools, and 
Bismarck had given up the struggle against the Church before 
the process of dispossession had made much headway. Down 
to the fall of the Empire about three-fourths of the district 
School inspectors in Prussia were clergymen. Accordingly, it 
may be said that the effect of the struggle with the Church 
in the seventies did not have a very radical effect upon the 
matter of local school inspection. 

^ See Marriott and Robertson, The Evolution of Prussia, p. 397. 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 187 



The General Regulations of 1872 

Very much more important than the school inspection law 
were the changes introduced in the curriculum of the teachers 
seminaries, the preparatory schools, and the folk schools of the 
monarchy. The official orders by means of which these changes 
were accomplished are ordinarily referred to as the General 
Regulations of October 15, 1872. They occur in four parts 
corresponding to the provisions relating to the three institu- 
tions mentioned above and to a new type of school, namely, 
the middle school. The spirit of the General Regulations 
differed greatly from that of the Regulations of 1854, which 
they superseded. In the fact that they lessened the emphasis 
to be placed upon religious material and greatly increased the 
amount of scientific and secular material they reflected the 
attitude of the government in its struggle against the Church, 
which was at its height in 1872. The Regulations of 1854 were 
the act of a government in a state of panic, which was attempt- 
ing to set back forcibly the political and religious thought of 
its generation to the conditions of an age of authority in mat- 
ters of faith and social control. In order to secure stability it 
was willing to sacrifice efficiency and progress. The General 
Regulations reflected, on the other hand, the attitude of a 
government which was confident of its ability to control and 
utilize the forces which its system of education might engender. 

New Regulations for Teacher Training. — In the training 
prescribed for the teachers seminaries attended by the pro- 
spective primary school teachers, we can note a very consider- 
able extension of the curriculum. Instead of limiting the in- 
struction of students to the materials of primary instruction 
and endeavoring to make them letter-perfect in that material, 
the new curriculum evidently aimed at the production of 
broadly educated individuals. In mathematics, for instance, 
.the instruction was to include, besides the more elementary 
work, square and cube root, proportion, simple equations, 
quadratic equations, and, if possible, progression and loga- 



i88 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

rithms. Two hours a week in the first two years of a three- 
year course were to be devoted to geometry. The General 
Regulations did not show the same distrust of pedagogical 
subjects that characterized those of 1854. Besides a course 
in the history of education, which included the reading and 
study of pedagogical classics, the students were to have courses 
in the general theory of education and instruction, as well as 
psychology and the elements of logic. The work in German 
was to include a thorough treatment of grammar, a study of 
the various literary forms, and a very extensive acquaintance 
with the best of German, especially classical, literature. A 
broad general course in history was provided, which culminated 
in a detailed study in the highest class, of Prussian history 
since the Reformation. Special attention was to be paid to 
the science studies and optional courses were provided, where 
circumstances would permit, in a foreign language, preferably 
French. Without attempting to make a detailed statement of 
the normal school work inaugurated by the General Regula- 
tions, the points mentioned will suffice to show its scope and 
quality. 

It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that because the 
predominantly confessional nature of the normal training 
course was relaxed in the new regulations, the instruction in 
religion was neglected. The teacher of Prussian children was 
to be thoroughly grounded in the history and geography of the 
Old and New Testaments, in the lives of biblical saints and 
heroes, in the catechism of his faith, and in church history. 
His mind was also to be liberally stored with Bible selections 
and with sacred hymns. 

The curriculum of the normal schools of Prussia followed 
the General Regulations without change until 1901, when still 
further extensions of the curriculum were made. The govern- 
ment, however, up to the events of 19 18 resisted any effort 
to connect the normal schools with higher education. The 
system of training for primary teachers was a closed system. 
It connected up at the bottom with the system of primary 
schools and prepared its graduates for returning as teachers 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 189 

to the primary schools. No cross connections were provided 
with secondary education and no progress was contemplated 
into the universities 'for professional studies. The recruits of 
the primary school staff were sons of the lower social classes 
and it was expected that they would serve in their turn in 
educating the children of those same social classes. 

The Primary Schools. — The part of the General Regula- 
tions of 1872 which dealt with the primary or folk schools 
exhibited a substantial extension of subject-matter, the elimi- 
nation of the extreme religious emphasis, an effort to curtail 
the amount of memory work required of pupils, and a general 
improvement of standards of organization and equipment. 
At the head of the new curriculum was retained religious in- 
struction. It included Bible history, some elements of church 
history, the catechism, and sacred hymns. The Prussian child 
is born into a church and church membership is taken as an 
aspect of citizenship. The Protestant religious instruction in 
the schools was said by the General Regulations to have the 
purpose of making the child acquainted with the Bible and the 
creed of his community, so that he might be able to take an 
active part in the church services and the church life. Protes- 
tant and Catholic and Jewish schools were recognized and each 
community was served with the type of religion in its schools 
which corresponded to the predominant religious faith. Where 
the community was divided, but fairly evenly divided, as to 
religious faith, if possible, one school for each religion was pro- 
vided. Where neither of these plans could be followed, chil- 
dren of all religions were taught together, and special pro- 
vision was made for religious instruction by the ministers of 
the various confessions. It has been as much a matter of 
course that the German child should be taught in the public 
schools the religion of his parents as that he should be taught 
the German language or arithmetic. 

The new curriculum of the primary schools laid great em- 
phasis on the German language, including reading, writing, 
composition, oral expression, grammar, and the study and 
memorizing of German literary classics. This subject was 



1 90 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

expected to play an important role in the general purpose of 
nationalization. The language taught in the schools was the 
High German as opposed to the various dialects spoken by 
the children in different localities. An effort was to be made 
to introduce a single national tongue as a bond of union among 
the diverse parts of the kingdom. We shall probably agree 
with the school authorities of Prussia as to the value of a 
common language and its literary treasures in building up in 
the people a consciousness of a common culture and in provid- 
ing them with the sense of a common heritage. When we add 
the influence of patriotic classics in filling the child with love 
for the fatherland and its heroes and admiration for deeds 
of self-sacrifice in its behalf, we can recognize the nationalistic 
possibilities of the work in the German language as second to 
none in importance among all the school subjects. 

The new program of studies laid considerable stress on 
arithmetic, which was combined in the upper grades with the 
more practical aspects of geometry. Drawing was listed as a 
separate subject. Considerable time, six to eight hours a 
week, in the middle and upper divisions was to be given to 
history, geography, and elementary science, grouped together 
under the head of "Realien." Singing was a stated subject, 
to which two hours a week were devoted in the middle and 
upper divisions and one hour in the lower division. Gym- 
nastics for the boys and needlework for the girls completed 
the curriculum. Without essential change this was the scope of 
the subject-matter used in the instruction of the primary school 
children down to the political changes of 1918. 

The Middle School. — The General Regulations of 1872 
provided for the development of a new type of public school to 
be known as the middle, or intermediate, school. This school 
was to be higher in grade than the common folk school, and it 
was expected to meet the needs of a class of society, higher 
than that which sent its children to the folk school, which 
would be able and willing to pay larger fees for a more ad- 
vanced training for its children, extending over a longer period 
of time. Particularly in the cities there had developed a con- 



PRUSSIA AXD THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 191 

siderable class of smaller merchants and higher industrial 
workers whose ambitions for the education and future calling 
of their children were not met by the folk school, while they 
were at the same time unable to bear the burden of secondary 
education. The new school was intended to come in between 
the two types of school just mentioned. Its curriculum, dis- 
tributed through either five or six grades, included religion 
(as a matter of course), German, arithmetic, geometry, natural 
science, physics and chemistry, geography, history, French (or 
some other modern language), drawing, singing, and gymnastics. 
In 19 10, the organization of the middle school was expanded 
to include nine grades and the privilege of one-year voluntary 
service was extended to its graduates, if they passed an addi- 
tional examination in a foreign language. 

The General Regulations as an Expression of a New 
National Spirit. — We have introduced the discussion of the 
General Regulations of 1872 in connection with the Kultur- 
kampj, the influence of which to a certain extent they reflect. 
It would, however, be only a very partial appraisal of their 
historical significance to regard them exclusively from that 
viewpoint. They are rather the expression of a new German 
national spirit, even as the Kulturkampj itself grew out of the 
Bismarckian government's desire to assert its Independence 
over any external force that might attempt to contest the state's 
control over its entire life. That new national spirit was self- 
confident and self-conscious, proud of its past achievements 
and eagerly looking forward to a more glorious future. The 
part to be played in the new national life by the schools was of 
a piece with the new efforts for administrative, military, and 
economic efficiency. The new curriculum for the normal 
schools was designed to furnish eventually a broadly educated 
staff of teachers for the primary schools. The new opportuni- 
ties given through the General Regulations for professional 
promotion into positions in the middle schools, the higher 
schools for girls, and the normal schools, instilled new ambition 
and energy into the primary school teachers. The middle 
schools were an addition to popular educational opportunities 



192 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

and provided the means for certain portions of the population 
of improving their social and economic condition. The change 
in the primary school was from a meager and predominantly 
religious, to a relatively rich and predominantly secular cur- 
riculum; from a system of tutelage in social submission to a 
system of engendering active patriotism and conscious enthusi- 
asm for existing civil institutions. 



The Fight against Social Democracy 

The result of the passage of the series of drastic laws against 
the Church in 1872 was to arouse a storm of Catholic opposi- 
tion. The Catholics refused to obey the laws and the Catholic 
party in the Reichstag developed an extremely effective opposi- 
tion to Bismarck and his policies. As years went by the oppo- 
sition to the enforcement of the "May" laws gained^rather than 
lost strength. In this political struggle, Bismarck eventually 
saw himself beaten. His parliamentary allies in the Kultur- 
kampf, the National Liberals, were becoming more and more 
insistent upon political reforms that would make the Prussian 
constitution truly representative of the people and the ministry 
responsible to the legislature. In the meantime, also. Social De- 
mocracy had become increasingly influential in Prussian politics 
and Bismarck considered the danger of social radicalism greater 
than that to be apprehended from the Church. Accordingly 
he gave up the struggle against the Church and gained the 
support of the Catholic Center party in his effort to .stamp out 
Social Democracy. 

In 1878 two attempts upon the life of the aged Emperor 
William I brought to a head the conflict between Bismarck 
and the growing Socialist party. In that year the Imperial 
Parliament, to eliminate Socialist propaganda, forbade all 
meetings and publications for the spread of socialistic ideas. 
The police were given power to expel from Germany any sus- 
pected Socialist; even the reading of socialistic literature was 
forbidden. The law of 1878 was twice renewed and remained 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 193 

in effect until 1890. At the same time the government at- 
tempted to cut the ground away from under the Socialists 
through legislation intended to improve the living conditions of 
the working class. The Sickness Insurance Law was passed 
in 1883, an Accident Insurance Law in 1884, and another in 
1885, and the Old Age Insurance Law in 1889. While the 
government was opposed to a system whereby the great mass 
of the people should carry through reforms intended to better 
their living conditions/ it was in favor of a system of State 
Socialism inaugurated by the government and carried out as a 
means of making the people more prosperous and better con- 
tented, and, as a result, more loyal citizens of the Empire. 
Suffice it to say that the sop offered to the Social Democrats 
was accepted by them only as a promise of a more thorough- 
going reorganization of economic and political life. Their 
agitation was not lessened as a result of the passage of these 
laws; rather their political activity increased in energy and 
gained new and greater successes. 

The ten years which saw the more violent phase of the gov- 
ernment's warfare on Socialism, were lean years for the Prus- 
sian schools. The prevalence of radical political and economic 
notions was largely blamed by some of the conservatives on 
the too ambitious education given in the schools of the people. 
For a time there was almost a return of the feeling against 
popular education which the conservatives had held in the 
revolutionary period of the forties. The annual income of 
teachers decreased on an average of five marks iri Prussia be- 
tween 1878 and 1886 ^ and shameful conditions of overcrowd- 
ing were allowed to exist. It was only after the resignation 
of Bismarck that any large constructive measures relating to 
public education were passed. 

The Ideas of Emperor William II respecting the Social 
Studies. — INIeanwhile the young Emperor William II, who 
had become King of Prussia and Emperor in Germany in 
1888, had made known his expectations as to what the schools 

^Tews, Ein Jahrhundert Preussisclier Sclmlgeschichte, p. 196. 



194 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

might do to combat the spread of socialistic ideas. In his 
cabinet order of May i, 1889/ he gave expression to a vigor- 
ous plan for supplanting socialistic propaganda by means of 
specific instruction in economics intended to expose the falla- 
cies of that political and economic theory. This document is 
so clearly illustrative not only of a theory of social and political 
organization but also of the use which the Prussian govern- 
ment has made of the schools in forming public opinion, that 
a translation of the same is herewith given in full: 

"For a long time I have been considering ways and means 
of making the schools in their various grades more useful in 
combating the spread of socialistic and communistic ideas. 
In the first place the school will have to lay a foundation for 
a sound understanding of civil and social relationships through 
the cultivation of a fear of God and a love of country. But I 
cannot rid myself of the idea that in a time when social-demo- 
cratic errors and misrepresentations are being spread abroad 
with increased zeal, the school should make more vigorous ef- 
forts to further a knowledge of what is true and real and prac- 
tically possible. It must make a special effort to furnish even 
the youth with the conviction that not only are the teachings 
of social democracy contrary to the commandments of God 
and to Christian morals, but also impracticable of realization 
and dangerous to the individual and to society at large. More 
than has formerly been the case, the school must include in 
the course of study modern, even contemporary history and 
give proof that state authority alone can protect for the indi- 
vidual his family, his freedom, and his rights. It must make 
the youth conscious of how the kings of Prussia have labored 
to improve the living conditions of the workingman in a pro- 
gressive evolution, beginning with the legislative reforms of 
Frederick the Great and the abolition of serfdom down to the 
present day. Further, through the use of statistics it must show 
how essentially and how constantly during the present century 
the wages and living conditions of the working class have im- 
proved under the guiding care of the Prussian kings. 

'See Lewin, Entwickiung der Preussischen Volksschiile, pp. 379-80. 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 195 

"In order to reach this goal, I count upon the full coopera- 
tion of my cabinet. While I request that the matter should be 
worked out in detail and specific plans developed, I should not 
omit the recommendation of the following points of special 
importance. 

"i. In order to make the religious instruction in its essen- 
tial meaning more effective it will be desirable to bring the 
ethical aspects of the same more into the foreground and to 
limit the memoriter material to the most necessary things. 

"2. The history of our country will have to treat with spe- 
cial emphasis of the history of our social and economic devel- 
opment and legislation from the beginning of the nineteenth 
century up to current socio-political legislation, in order to 
show how the Prussian kings have always regarded it as their 
special mission to confer upon that portion of the population 
which is destined to labor with its hands a protection that was 
consistent with the title "father of the country," and to in- 
crease its physical and spiritual well-being, and how in the 
future as well the workingman can look forward to just and 
secure pursuit of his calling only under the protection and the 
solicitous care of the king at the head of a well-ordered state. 
Especially important will it be from the standpoint of prac- 
tical utility to have it made clear to the youth through the 
use of striking concrete examples that a well-ordered political 
economy under firm monarchical guidance is the indispensable 
condition of the security and prosperity of the individual in 
his legal and economic life, and that, on the contrary, the teach- 
ings of social democracy are impracticable of realization, and, 
if they -were practicable, would subject the individual even in 
his domestic and private life to an unbearable constraint. The 
alleged ideals of the Socialists are exhibited with sufficient clear- 
ness in their own expositions to appear forbidding to the feel- 
ings and the practical good sense of the youth. 

"3. It is to be taken for granted that the duty thus de- 
volving upon the school must be circumscribed according to 
the scope and aim of the various grades of schools and that, 
accordingly, only the simplest and most easily grasped concep- 



196 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

tions must be placed before the pupils in the folk schools, 
while this exercise is to be handled more seriously and in 
greater detail in the higher grades of educational institutions. 
Thereupon it will become especially necessary for the teachers 
to become qualified to undertake this task with enthusiasm 
and see it through with professional skill. For this purpose the 
teacher training colleges must have their curriculum corre- 
spondingly expanded. 

"I am not ignorant of the difficulties which will stand in 
the way of carrying out this plan and I realize that it will re- 
quire more extended experience to discover the correct means 
and methods. But such considerations need not restrain us 
from approaching through zeal and persistent effort a goal 
which, according to my opinion, is of capital importance for 
the welfare of the nation." 

It is perhaps superfluous to add that there were immediately 
forthcoming the ministerial orders which provided for carry- 
ing into effect the purposes of the government. The curriculum 
of the secondary schools was modified in the desired direction. 
The normal school instruction was rearranged so as to give 
the prospective primary school teachers adequate instruction 
in economics and economic history so that they might be fitted 
to cope with socialistic theories. Even the curricula of the 
middle schools, the primary schools, and the continuation 
schools were revamped to include anti-socialistic propaganda. 

Militant Nationalism after 1890 

As has been said above, Bismarck regarded Germany, after 
the events of 1870-1871, as a "satiated" state. He was not 
interested in the acquisition of additional territory nor even 
in the extension of German "influence." In his mind, Ger- 
many's main problems were domestic and related to industrial, 
agricultural, and administrative development. As long as Bis- 
marck remained at the helm that policy was generally ad- 
hered to. He might encourage England and France to extend 
their colonial interests; as for Germany, she had territory 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 197 

enough. It may be said, in opposition to this position, that' 
Germany did make the beginning of a colonial empire in 
1884 when the protection of the government was extended to 
German citizens in Africa. At that time she began her coloni- 
zation in South Africa, and in 1890 Germany took part in the 
agreement between the important colonizing nations of Europe 
in regard to the division of Africa and the demarcation of 
possessions and "spheres of influence." But Bismarck's heart 
was not in the colonial venture and, under his leadership, Ger- 
many did not become an aggressive competitor for colonial 
possessions. 

However, with the accession of William II a thoroughgoing 
break with the old political policies gradually took place. Bis- 
marck resigned, on request, in 1890 and from that time on 
new counsellors had the ear of the Emperor and new and 
more aggressive policies gained the ascendancy. The new ten- 
dencies were the outgrowth of the stupendous economic devel- 
opment of Germany since the seventies. As a matter of fact, 
by 1890 Germany was no longer a "satiated" state confronted 
mainly with problems of internal development. She had be- 
come a competitor in the markets of the world, was searching 
restlessly for new purchasers for the products elaborated by 
her industries, was importing great quantities of raw materials 
and foodstuffs, and was anxiously trying to solve the problem 
as to what should be done with her rapidly increasing popula- 
tion. Dr. Paul Rohrbach, a German economic geographer, 
describes the problem of national expansion and international 
policy as follows: 

"The increase of our population is 800,000 yearly (1903). 
No ingenuity and no exertion can bring the food of these 
800,000 people out of the ground. The number of those who 
must live on foreign corn increases, and the increase will soon be 
a million a year. Whoever cannot get rid of this million is 
bound to answer the question how otherwise he will feed them 
than by the produce of our industry in the manufacture of 
raw materials brought from abroad and the sale of our own 
products to foreign nations, or the produce of the capital 



igS NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

created here and invested abroad. If that is so, then for Ger- 
many all questions of foreign politics must be viewed from 
the standpoint of the creation and maintenance of markets 
abroad, and especially in transoceanic countries. For good or 
ill we must accustom ourselves in our political thinking to 
the application of the same principles as the English. In 
England the determination of foreign policy according to the 
requirements of trade, and therefore of industry, is an axiom 
of the national consciousness which no one any longer dis- 
putes. If the possibility of disposing of its industrial prod- 
ucts abroad were one day to cease or to be visibly limited for 
England, the immediate result would be, not merely the eco- 
nomic ruin of millions of industrial existences on both sides of 
the ocean, but the political collapse of Great Britain as a 
Great Power. Yet the position is not materially different for 
ourselves." ^ 

This is not the place to attempt a detailed account of Ger- 
many's losing race for colonial possessions. She was late get- 
ting into the game and was unsuccessful in administering such 
colonies as she secured. By 1906, however, her overseas 
colonies fit for European colonization amounted to an area 
equal to twice that of the Empire, and those unfit for white 
habitation, to three times that of the mother country. 

Coincident with the colonial expansion which was an im- 
portant principle of German policy after 1890, took place the 
stupendous growth of the overseas trade of Germany, the rapid 
increase in her merchant marine and the mushroom development 
of the Imperial navy. "During the last twenty-five years the 
tonnage of Germany's marine has increased 250 per cent, a 
quarter of which has been in the last five years, from 1908- 
1913." - The Imperial navy was always one of the main in- 
terests of William II, and from the first year of his reign he 
used all means in his power to foster its strength and efficiency. 
It was only in 1900, however, that the large navy party 
achieved a definite triumph. By that time even the Socialists 

' Quoted from Dawson, The Evolution of Modern Germany, pp. 337-8. 
^Gibbons, The New Map of Europe, p. 52. 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-191B 199 

had come into line and were enthusiastic supporters of unprece- ' 
dented appropriations for naval expansion. By the time of the 
outbreak of the World War, Germany's fleet stood second only 
to that of Great Britain. 

Either as an aspect of her colonial policy or as a substitute 
for unsuccessful colonial projects, Germany turned to the Near 
East. Her diplomacy aimed at cementing friendly relations 
with Turkey and gaining an overland route to the Persian 
Gulf that would not be at the mercy of English sea-power. In 
spite of her feverish efforts, Germany's navy remained a 
bad second to that of England, which had persisted in laying 
down two naval vessels for every one begun by Germany. 
The German project of forming a strong inland league was 
decidedly interfered with by the developments in the Balkans 
in 19 1 3, out of which Turkey emerged with lessened terri- 
tory, and as a result of which Serbia, a Slav state traditionally 
hostile to Austria-Hungary, gained in territory, population, and 
prestige. INIoreover Serbia was the main highway to Con- 
stantinople, Bagdad, and the Gulf of Persia, and any increase 
in the power of Serbia spelled defeat for the plan of a central 
empire reaching from the Baltic Sea to the Persian Gulf under 
the control of Berlin. The assassination of an Austrian Arch- 
duke at the Httle town of Serajevo in 1914 was the shock that 
alone was necessary to crystallize the troubled mixture of 
European national rivalries. 

So much has been said of the international situation following 
1890 for the sake of at least indicating the tremendous interna- 
tional tension which existed in Europe. The entire situation 
is so intricate that such a sketchy treatment seems more or less 
futile, but it is hoped that what has been said may at least 
furnish a background for a discussion of the nationalistic 
emphasis in German schools. We can agree that Germany was 
the unsatisfied element in the European international mixture, 
that the final cataclysm was the direct result of Germany's 
aggressive steps toward her "place in the sun," and that the 
final responsibility for the devastating War of 1914-1918 rests 
upon Berlin. Our present purpose, however, is to discover, 



200 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

if possible, the way in which Germany used her educrtional 
system to consolidate national feeling and belief in favor of 
her international policies. In this effort at understanding the 
nationalistic organization of German schools we shall con- 
tinue to take Prussia as a key. 

State Contributions to Public Education in Prussia. — 
The history of the development of a national system of edu- 
cation in Prussia exhibits an apparent inconsistency in that, 
whereas the state very early secured extensive control, only 
in the most recent times has it contributed substantially to the 
expenses, of public education. Even as early as 1716, the state 
prescribed compulsory attendance at school. The power of 
the state was successively extended by the Rescript of 
1763, the Allgemeines Landrecht of 1794, the comprehen- 
sive reorganization of education following the Treaty of Tilsit, 
and the other pieces of school legislation which have been re- 
ferred to in previous chapters. By these various developments, 
the state had acquired a very complete control over all phases 
of education. It had established standard qualifications for 
teachers, uniform curricula, and uniform administration and 
had compelled the establishment of pension schemes for teach- 
ers. The Constitution of 1850 had declared (Article 25) that 
the support of the folk schools was to be provided by the 
local communities, but promised state aid if the community 
was unable to maintain, out of its own resources, the schools 
at the standard set. The same article promised a fixed salary 
for the teachers, which was to be regulated with reference to 
the cost of living, and the elimination of fees in the folk 
schools. The detailed working out of the constitutional 
promise was left to subsequent legislation. We have seen 
(p. 162) how the government after 1850 resisted the efforts of 
the Liberal friends of education to have a general education 
law passed. The provisions of the Constitution were ac- 
complished only piecemeal and after long delay. 

A law passed in 1869 called for the annual contribution by 
the state of 60,000 thalers for pensions for widows of school- 
teachers. In 1873 the state allowed a considerable sum for the 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 201 

improvement of the salaries of primary school teachers, for the 
establishment of new teaching positions, and for retirement al- 
lowances for teachers. In 1871, the total contribution of the 
state to the primary schools was about one and a half million 
thalers.^ This sum was increased by the new law to four 
and a half millions in 1873, to about six millions in 1875, and 
to six and a half millions in 1877. In 1 880-1 881, the state in- 
creased its contribution to the salaries of primary teachers 
and to teachers' and teachers' widows' pensions. In 1885, 
a teachers' pension law placed all folk school teachers on the 
same pension basis as other state officials, guaranteeing them 
a fixed non-contributory pension on the basis of years of ser- 
vice. By the law of 1888, school fees in the primary schools 
were abolished and the state undertook at the same time to pay 
a portion of the salary of every teacher. For meeting the ex- 
penses of the law, the state set aside 20,000,000 marks. In 
1893, the state contributed two million marks for the erection 
of schoolhouses. In 1897 the salary law was revised. Ac- 
cording to the provisions of this law. there was adopted a basal 
salary, with increments for length of service and allowances 
for lodging. Further salary increases were provided by a law 
of 1909. In 1907, the pension law was revised, with the state 
accepting as its share of the costs the first 600 marks of the 
pension of each teacher. The remainder of the pension was 
to be paid by the civil communities. 

The result of all these changes in the payment of the costs of 
primary education had been to increase greatly the proportion 
of the total cost borne by the state, but up to 1906 no thor- 
oughgoing reorganization of the maintenance of the primary 
schools had occurred. In that year the school societies (see 
p. 133), which up to then had been responsible for the main- 
tenance of the folk schools, were abolished and school cor- 
porations (Verbande) took their place. By this change school 
maintenance ceased to follow religious, or sectarian, lines and 
became an exclusively civil function. At the same time, the 
state accepted certain very definite financial responsibilities, 

* The thaler was equivalent to three marks or seventy-five cents. 



202 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

in addition to those mentioned above. The new contributions 
of the state were intended to help out the poorer communities. 
A sum of five million marks was provided for the equalization 
of resources among the poorer corporations that were adversely 
affected by the law. Subsidies were given to poorer communi- 
ties having fewer than twenty-six teachers for general costs 
of education and for building purposes. An unrestricted ap- 
propriation wa3 also made for creating new teaching positions. 

As a result of all these state aids that have resulted from 
legislation during the last sixty — mainly during the last fif- 
teen years, before the Revolution of 19 18 — the central author- 
ity was paying in Prussia a little less than one-third of the total 
cost of primary education. The same proportion of state to 
local contributions was true for Germany as a whole. The 
main share of the state's contribution was paid in terms of 
teachers' salaries and pensions. The system of state subsidy 
followed in Prussia may be seen to have aided the poorer 
communities to come up to the standard set for the country at 
large. It practically eliminated very bad, or even bad, schools. 
At the same time, such a plan failed to encourage communi- 
ties to strive for a degree of excellence that exceeded the 
standard. 

It will be impossible in this brief study to attempt to give 
the details of the state's participation in the support of other 
grades of education. Suffice it to say that in 1911 the state 
of Prussia paid, in round numbers, 148,500,000 out of a total 
of 560,000,000 marks toward the expenses of elementary, 
middle, and secondary schools, or 26 per cent. For the Empire 
as a whole, the share of the costs of these three grades of edu- 
cation borne by the various central authorities amounted, 
in 191 1, to abouv 33 per cent. 

The Machinery of Educational Control. — The general 
organizalion of Prussian educdtion took form early in the 
nineteenth century along the lines in which it persisted down 
to 1 9 19 (see pp. 129 ff.). At the head of the system stood 
the Minister of Religion and Education. Under his imme- 
diate control was a comprehensive bureaucratic organization 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 203 

which had cognizance of all grades of education from the uni- 
versities down to the primary school. The appointment of 
university professors was directly in the hands of the minister 
and their salaries were paid mainly out of the national treasury. 
The Germans have long boasted of the " Lehr-und-lern-jrei- 
heit" or academic freedom enjoyed in the universities and in 
so far as this applied to technical research, the boast was jus- 
tified. But those lower university teachers who gained noto- 
riety for their liberal political or radical economic ideas did 
not receive promotion or the marks of government esteem in 
the shape of orders and decorations. The government was thus 
able so to control the development of political and economic 
theory and the teaching of history in the universities that only 
such teachings as were satisfactory to the government could 
receive any considerable support from university professors. 

Educational Administration Bureaucratic. — It is worthy 
of emphasis that educational administration was bureaucratic 
from top to bottom. There was no national council, as in 
France, to be consulted by the government; there was no 
effort at securing a measure of popular control over the national 
educational policies through even a selected representative 
council. The minister of education was appointed by the king 
and he appointed his immediate assistants out of the official 
family. He also appointed the members of the provincial 
council and the county school boards, thus carrying down the 
national bureaucratic organization to the secondary and the 
lower schools. 

The Provincial School Board. — Prussia was divided into 
twelve provinces each with its school board. The provincial 
school boards appointed, on the nominations of the local authori- 
ties, the teachers of secondary schools and had general charge 
of the affairs of secondary education. Their connection with 
the lower schools was limited to the examination of teachers 
and oversight of the normal schools. It may be said that the 
actions of the provincial council were all subject to the veto 
of the minister of education. Another important body operat- 
ing within the provincial area was the examination commission, 



204 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

whose members were appointed by the minister and whose du- 
ties were the examination of candidates for ehgibility to teach 
in the secondary schools. The provincial councils were com- 
posed of seven or eight trained schoolmen appointed by the 
minister, and they were the official inspectors of the various 
grades of education in their charge. This board also had charge 
of the official examination of the teachers of the lower schools 
and of candidates for the diploma from secondary schools. 

County School Boards. — The provinces were divided into 
Regierungsbezirke, or administrative counties, each with its 
school board composed of seven or eight appointive officials. 
Some of these officials were professional schoolmen and had 
the title and functions of superintendents of schools. They 
exercised general supervision over primary instruction in the 
county. In regard to the lower schools^ the county boards were 
directly responsible to the minister of education. 

Local Inspection. — For purposes of local inspection the 
administrative counties were divided into Kreise, or school in- 
spection districts. Several of these districts grouped together 
were under a county superintendent, while each district had its 
own local inspector. The actual conduct of the lower schools 
came under the eye of the district inspector, who was the 
direct representative of the government in seeing that the 
laws and regulations regarding the schools were fully carried 
out. Fitly enough, considering the system as a whole, the dis- 
trict inspectors were appointed by the minister of education. 
Up to 19 19, as has been said above (p. 186), about three-fourths 
of the district inspectors were clergymen. In 19 12 only about 
three-tenths of the total number of district inspectors were 
giving full time to this work. 

In addition to the district inspector each school was fur- 
ther supervised by a local inspector, usually a pastor, or in the 
case of a large school with several teachers, by the principal 
of the school. The local inspector was appointed by the county 
board and was the official representative of that board in the 
membership of the local authorities. 

Local Education Authorities. — There were two forms of 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 205 

local authorities. In cities the local authority was called the 
school deputation and in rural districts the school board, or 
Schulvorstand. The composition, mode of selection, and the 
strictly qualified powers of the local school authorities con- 
stitute a significant detail of German educational administra- 
tion. The school deputation of the cities was usually com- 
posed of the mayor, who was a civil official appointed by the 
government, and not more than two additional members of the 
municipal government, appointed by the mayor; an equal num- 
ber elected from the city council by the members of the city 
council; an equal number of men acquainted with the work 
of the primary schools, including a principal or teacher of a 
primary school; one representative each of the Evangelical, 
Catholic, and Jewish churches; and the ex officio representative 
of the county school board, namely, the district school in- 
spector. The representatives of primary education in the depu- 
tation were chosen by the representatives of the city adminis- 
tration and the city council. All members had to have the 
approval of the county school board and all the acts of the 
deputation might be vetoed by the same body. 

Rural communities had school boards composed of the 
chief magistrate of the community, pastors of the religious 
denominations represented in the community, a teacher ap- 
pointed by the county board, and several members of the com- 
munity elected by the community council. As in the case of 
the city deputations the elective members had to receive the 
approval of the county board, which also had the right to veto 
any acts of the board. 

The composition of the local authorities thus guaranteed the 
carrying down to the local schools of the purposes of the 
central government. As a matter of fact the power left to 
the local authorities was very slight and related principally 
to externa. The local authorities had the right to nominate 
teachers out of an official list, but the nominations had to be 
ratified by the county board in the case of teachers in the 
lower schools and by the provincial school board in the case of 
secondary teachers. When a city deputation desired to add a 



2o6 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

secondary school it had first to convince the provincial school 
board that the kind of school desired was necessary and could 
be supported. The deputation might decide upon the kind of 
school it wanted, might supply the buildings and equipment, 
and nominate the teachers out of lists of eligible candidates 
prepared by provincial authorities. Once the school was in 
operation, however, the local authority had practically no con- 
trol over it. The teachers were inspected and disciplined by 
the provincial officials, the curriculum followed the prescrip- 
tions of the minister of education for that type of school, and 
the internal conduct of the school followed a course which 
could not be interfered with by the local authority in any de- 
tail. With only slight change of terminology, the same held 
true of the relationships between the local authorities and the 
lower schools. 

It will be readily enough seen that the bureaucratic organiza- 
tion of Prussian education provided for the central government 
a machine nicely designed to carry out its will. At no point 
in the entire system was any opportunity allowed for the in- 
troduction of practices or purposes running contrary to the 
policy determined upon by the ruling powers in Berlin. Where 
local officials were given authority it was usually restricted 
to control over external affairs, such as buildings and equip- 
ment, the time schedule, and the calendar, and all functions so 
delegated were hedged about by official regulations and subject 
to veto by a bureaucratic school board of higher rank and 
authority. The will of the group of officials in the ministry 
of religion and education could be put into effect in every edu- 
cational institution under its control without friction and 
without delay. 

The Influence of Teacher Training. — The perfect organi- 
zation of the machinery of educational administration found a 
valuable counterpart in the teachers in the schools. They 
were state officials, paid in large part by the state, and respon- 
sible to state officials in every detail of their duties. They had 
been selected and trained for their social position and their 
professional work. The primary teacher, coming as he did 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 207 

from the lower social classes, was made letter-perfect in the 
subject-matter, and habituated in the motives, of primary edu- 
cation. He was competent to carry out his task and enthusias- 
tic over what he considered his official mission. The secondary 
school teacher was a higher state official, usually a reserve offi- 
cer, drawn from the middle social classes and secure in the 
social prerogatives gained from his official status. He was the 
product of secondary school and university education and ad- 
mirably adapted to maintain in his pupils their accepted sense 
of social superiority, while at the same time he was carefully 
selected on the grounds of professional skill, academic prepara- 
tion, and political outlook. 

Private Education. — Private education had very slight 
development in Prussia, but private schools were allowed to 
exist, subject to official approval. They had to be open to 
government inspection and in no case were they allowed to 
continue if they fell below government standards. In secon- 
dary education, the curriculum of the public schools had to 
be adhered to and the teachers were subject to the same con- 
ditions of eligibility as those of the public schools. For prac- 
tical purposes, private education in Germany may be ignored 
in any effort to understand the national system of education. 
Its influence was negligible. 

Nationalistic Propaganda by means of the Schools. — It 
will be impossible in this brief sketch to attempt to indicate 
the rich and varied developments of Prussian education by 
means of which it ministered to the educational needs of a 
complex modern civilization. It seems desirable, however, to 
indicate how the control of the government was exercised to 
inculcate in German youth a passionate devotion to the father- 
land, and to show how the government attempted also to de- 
velop in the youth an equal loyalty to the monarchical form 
of government and the ruling house. 

We have seen in following out the history of German edu- 
cation since the Treaty of Tilsit that the nationalistic and dy- 
nastic motives have always been prominent. There was no 
occasion for a diminution of zeal along those lines after the 



2o8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

Franco-Prussian War, for during the interval between 1870 
and 19 14, Europe was an armed camp in a state of constant 
alarm over wars or rumors of wars. Following the accession 
of the former Emperor William II, this condition was accen- 
tuated by the aggressive attitude of Germany in world affairs 
and the unsatisfied demands on her part for increased outlets 
for her marvelous economic expansion. 

The German boy and girl have been educated in an emo- 
tional atmosphere of patriotism. The instruction in German has 
been designed to fill them with pride in their native tongue and 
make them conversant with its masterpieces, particularly those 
which strengthened the spirit of devotion to the fatherland. 
The German patriotic poems, sometimes set to thrilling music, 
have woven their spell over youthful minds for more than a 
century, and every effort has been made, through the selec- 
tion of suitable materials and the emphasis placed upon 
learning them by heart, to build up in the boys and girls an 
emotional set that would cause them unhesitatingly to give 
themselves without reservation at their country's need. Those 
old poems, with their glorification of national virtues, their 
recalling of ancient hatreds, their passionate praise of courage 
and self-sacrifice in the national cause, have done much to 
mould the German people into national unity. 

The German schools, and particularly the lower schools, 
have exhibited in a preeminent degree the pragmatic as op- 
posed to the scientific conception of the teaching of history. 
The German schools have taught history not so much to get 
at the truth as to inculcate a point of view, not so much to 
develop the power of making sound judgments in regard to 
social problems as to establish a certain emotional bias that 
might even resist the admission of new data capable of modi- 
fying that bias. In this type of history teaching the Prussian 
teacher has enjoyed an advantageous position, for Prussia, 
down to the year 1918, had experienced only one successful 
political tradition. The rise to territorial, military, and eco- 
nomic greatness of Prussia and Germany has taken place under 
the Hohenzollern dynasty and under social institutions which 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 209 

have been the least modified in the direction of liberal democ- 
racy of any of the Great Powers of Western Europe. One may 
well imagine the difficulty, and possibly in some cases, the 
dismay, of a veteran Prussian teacher who is now teaching 
history after the events of 19 18. Prussian history has been 
such that the teacher did not need to be critical. He might 
explain away difficulties, such as the partitions of Poland and 
the seizure of Alsace-Lorraine, on the basis of military neces- 
sity or missionary zeal. He might paint up the occasional non- 
entities of the Hohenzollern line, whitewash the eccentrics and 
the debauchees, and laud the characteristics and achievements 
of the really great. But never before the present has he been 
compelled to recognize a complete overturn of authority and 
the practical registration in his nation's history of a repudia- 
tion of what had gone before. We know from our own na- 
tional experience that it is easy to accept a complimentary 
bias toward one's own country, and can well understand the 
same fact as respects Germany. The German teacher of his- 
tory could exhibit France as a rapacious conqueror in taking 
Alsace and Lorraine, with their predominantly German popu- 
lation, and use that fact as justification for the taking back 
on Germany's part of the "lost provinces." In the same way 
he could minimize the taking of so large a share of the terri- 
tory of the assassinated nationality of Poland on the ground 
that if Prussia had not taken it Russia would have done so to 
the great danger of Prussian interests. How easily, too, the 
social and political ameliorations which have taken place since 
the Treaty of Tilsit might be attributed to the benevolence 
of the ruling house. Through following such methods, the 
teacher of history in the Prussian primary school has been a 
preacher of patriotism and the official apologist of the reigning 
dynasty and of the established social and political order. 

The teaching of geography has also ministered to national 
unity. The question, "What is Germany?" is reported to have 
been asked in a German school, and the answer prompted by 
the teacher was, "Germany is a land entirely surrounded by 
enemies." The incident in its details may be true or not, but 



2 10 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

it certainly illustrates aptly enough the use which that subject 
has been put to in the German schools. The nationalistic in- 
fluence of geography begins with the emphasis which is placed 
on national and local geography, tied up as it is with the study 
of history. The pupil thus comes to love not only the national 
heroes but the very ground on which they walked. We in 
America have difficulty in appreciating this factor for our cities 
and towns are all so new. They have little of stirring history 
and tradition connected with them. The case is different in 
Germany where almost every city and countryside have been 
the scene of some striking historical episode. 

The German boy and girl were not left ignorant of the 
great geographical factors which conditioned national life. 
The difficulty of defending eastern Prussia against Russian 
attack was no less known to the children on the benches of 
the primary schools than it was to the Imperial War College 
at Berlin. The menace to Germany, under the necessity of 
importing food and raw materials from overseas, of the un- 
disputed naval power of Great Britain, became an argument 
in the child's mind for naval expansion and the acquisition 
of a colonial empire. The teaching of geography was carried 
out, in part at least, with the intention of making the child 
intelligent about national economic and military problems and 
convinced of the necessity and the justice of national policies. 

Method in Primary Schools. — Close observers of primary 
education in Germany have been impressed with the small 
amount of initiative allowed the pupil and the minimum use of 
textbooks and reading references. The teacher was for the 
most part the text. He decided, subject to minute official 
regulation of the material of instruction, the subject-matter of 
the lesson. He introduced illustrative material, questioned the 
pupil on what had been seen and said, and drilled the pupil in 
what he was expected to retain. Little room was left for the 
independent activity of the children. However, it must be 
said for the teacher that he was well-informed for his task, 
thoroughly prepared for the lesson, and generally animated and 
interesting in his presentation of material. The net result of 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 211 

such instruction was that the child learned thoroughly and accu- 
rately what he was expected to know, but had not been taught 
to think for himself even in those provinces where self-activity 
was genuinely possible. It would seem that the predominance 
of such methods of teaching fitted in with the subservient social 
and political position of the primary school pupils. 

Address of Emperor William II. — As to the nationalistic 
tendencies in the curricula of secondary schools we can get 
no better conception than from that historic address of Em- 
peror William II at the Conference on Secondary School Re- 
form in 1890.^ On that occasion he said that the main fault 
with secondary education was that a national basis was want- 
ing. "The foundation of our gymnasium must be German. It 
is our duty to educate young men to become young Germans, 
not young Greeks or Romans. . . . We must make German 
the basis, and German composition must be the center around 
which everything else revolves. . . . There is another point 
which I should like to see more developed with us; that is 
the 'National' in questions of history, geography, and heroic 
tradition." 

Democracy in German Education. — We have already 
had occasion to describe the thoroughly bureaucratic nature 
of Prussian school administration, which is to say, German 
school administration. The schools were administered just like 
an army or like most industrial corporations, without any 
recognition of the rights of the people in determining educa- 
tional policy at any point other than their general and limited 
power of voting in state and national elections. Perhaps no 
single point better illustrates the insulation of the schools 
against popular control than the fact that parents were allowed 
to visit schools only after securing an official permit. 

In spite of the introduction of popular representation and 
the forms of parliamentary government, Germany had not 
essentially changed in the period between 1807 and 1918. 
The upper classes, military, landowning, capitalistic, and pro- 
fessional, were the real rulers, and at his accession William II 

'See Educational Review, Vol. I, pp. 200-8. 



212 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

reiterated the seventeenth century formula of the divine right 
of kings. In spite of the growth in numbers of the industrial 
proletariat, the political institutions of the several states and 
the Empire denied them influence. It is highly probable that 
the tense international situation of the later nineteenth cen- 
tury, with its demands for national solidarity of opinion and 
military strength, delayed long after its logical time the natural 
entry of the industrial workers into political power and the 
reorganization of antiquated political forms. 

In a very real sense the military establishment was the soul 
of German life. No citizen escaped its influence through ser- 
vice with the colors or taxation for its support. The imperial 
government set the standard for voluntary one-year service at 
the ability to pass an examination which corresponded to the 
work of. a six-year secondary school. Those who passed this 
examination were forthwith eligible to promotion into the 
most select and influential social class, namely, that of the 
military officers (in the reserve). Those who could not pass 
it were compelled to serve as privates and could not expect 
promotion to the rank of commissioned officer. As secondary 
education was too expensive for the great mass of the people, 
it resulted that the children who attended the primary schools 
were marked from the first to service in the ranks. 

The Primary School. — The main characteristic of German 
schools under the old regime, from the social standpoint, was 
their closed-in character. There was no practical opportunity 
for a boy to pass from the primary school to a secondary school 
after the fourth year, owing to differences of curriculum, and 
the secondary schools were practically the only avenues of 
entrance into the higher technical schools and the universities. 
Russell says ^ that not one boy in ten thousand who completed 
the primary school entered the gymnasium. A round- 
about way was provided for the boy who had finished the pri 
mary school to enter the university through preparing privately 
for the official matriculation examination. The privilege of 
one-year voluntary service in the army was also allowed to 

* German Higher Schools, p. 135. 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 213 

the graduates of the normal schools. The boy who entered 
and finished the primary school came from the lowest industrial 
and social class and was expected more or less inevitably to 
continue in about the same condition as that of his parents. 
From the primary school he entered the lower forms of voca- 
tional school, probably of the continuation type, became an 
artisan or common laborer, and did his two years of military 
service. Ninety per cent of all German children received their 
education in the primary schools. 

The Middle School. — The middle school was intended for 
the use of children whose parents were fairly prosperous but 
not wealthy and who did not like to have their children asso- 
ciate with the children of a recognizedly lower social class. 
The fees in this school were smaller than those of the secon- 
flary school; the course of study was more extended than that 
of the primary school, and it gave its graduates the highly 
esteemed privilege of one-year voluntary service, on passing an 
additional examination in foreign languages. The middle 
Fchool pupil came from what the French would call the petite 
bourgeoisie, and might be expected to become a bookkeeper 
or merchant or to enter some industry with advantage after 
having prepared himself through further study at a lower 
technical school. The middle school did not prosper greatly 
following its organization in 1872 — only three-tenths of one 
per cent of all Prussian children receiving their education in 
this type of school. 

Secondary Education. — The secondary schools have al- 
ready been sufficiently characterized in contrast with the lower 
school. They were the schools attended by the children of 
parents who were wealthy, or members of the higher official 
and professional classes. They furnished the great majority 
of the one-year voluntary service men and practically all the 
officers in the army and navy. They represented the only 
practicable and direct way of matriculation at the universities. 
The social significance of this is clearly seen when we remember 
that the state governments of Germany do not allow any one to 
become a minister of religion, a higher judicial or administra- 



214 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

tive official, or a doctor or lawyer who has not studied in a 
university and passed the required official examinations for 
such functions. 

The Strength and Weakness of the German System. — 
Sufficient has been said to indicate the undemocratic nature 
of the German system of education under the Empire. That 
does not, however, convict the system of failure, for it was 
not intended to be democratic. It was intended, rather, to 
serve the needs of a state which was organized according to 
principles that were frankly distrustful of popular influence. 
The predominant principle of German political organization 
was that the elite should rule and that the people should con- 
sent to be governed from above by their social betters who 
alone were competent to control the national destinies. In gen- 
eral one must be sympathetic with a plea for the necessity of 
trained leadership and must recognize the high degree of 
technical efficiency which was developed in Germany under 
that system of education and government which it has lived 
under for the more than a century covered by this narrative. 
But, at the same time, we must be profoundly distrustful of 
any system of social organization which designates its elite on 
the highly adventitious grounds of wealth and birth. It would 
be eminently desirable for philosophers to be kings, but it is 
a prime fallacy to classify kings ex officio as philosophers. Once 
the privilege of receiving the highest form of development is 
limited to Lhe members of a given social class, the smallest in 
number and set apart by reason of circumstances which in 
many cases had their origin in mediaeval days, the state is 
denied the opportunity of utilizing the full quota of its human 
resources. The government suffers from inbreeding. It be- 
comes impervious to new motives that well up out of the 
experience of its millions. This deprivation is made more 
extreme, as was the case in Germany, when the predominant 
social and political influence is wielded by a case-hardened, 
routinized, saber-rattling military caste. If Germany gained 
in efficiency from the educational system which she erected, 
she lost in human insight and in responsiveness to the broader 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 215 

social and international motives of the century and particularly 
of our generation. 

The Liberal Element in Education. — Our account of 
German political institutions and education under the Empire 
has exhibited only the dominating conditions and tendencies. 
It would be obviously unfair, however, to conclude the discus- 
sion without at least indicating the existence of a strong mi- 
nority tendency in politics which aimed at the liberalizing of 
political life and the realization of representative government 
on the basis of manhood suffrage. In the field of education 
as well, there were many intelligent critics of the existent sys- 
tem. There was much agitation for the opening up of univer- 
sity careers to the normal school graduates and for organizing 
the training of primary teachers as a branch of higher educa- 
tion. The restrictions placed upon free movement of pupils in 
the primary into the secondary school system were opposed in 
liberal circles and proposals were made and some practical 
schemes organized to develop a unitary school {Einheitsschule) 
which would remove at least curriculum difficulties from the 
path of the aspiring and gifted poor child. There were numer- 
ous critics of the drill-sergeant methods of instruction in use 
in the schools. Among other demands of a considerable 
group of school men were the secularization of the curriculum 
and the installation of strictly professional school inspection. 
The real strength of this minority tendency may be estimated 
from the educational changes proposed in the constitution of 
the German Republic. 

The German Republic 

The abdication of Emperor William II was announced on 
November 9, 1918. From that date Germany was declared a 
republic. The Imperial Parliament was dissolved and the 
monarchical heads of the federal states either abdicated or 
were deposed. Elections for a National Constitutional As- 
sembly were held in January 19 19, in which all Germans, 
women as well as men, over twenty years of age were eligible 



2i6 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

to take part. On February 11, the assembly elected Friedrich 
Ebert, a former saddler, the first president of the new republic. 
The new constitution was adopted July 31 and has been 
effective since August 13, 191 9. 

The constitution of the German Republic reproduces prac- 
tically all the more prominent administrative features of the Em- 
pire. The new nation is composed of the same federated states 
as the old, with the exception of the imperial territory, Alsace- 
Lorraine, and it exercises the same functions over the separate 
states as did the Empire with some extensions of the federal 
power. It is too early to say whether or not the new state 
has lost the administrative efficiency of the old. 

In spirit, however, the new constitution represents a thor- 
oughgoing change from the old. The institution and all the 
trappings of monarchy are destroyed. The Reichstag, elected 
on the basis of manhood and womanhood suffrage, is the center 
of political power in the Republic, while the popular houses 
in the various states have a like balance of power allotted to 
them. The principle of parliamentary responsibility of the 
executive branch is adhered to, supplemented by a provision 
for new elections when a party has been overthrown by a loss 
of support in the Reichstag. Direct referendum to the people 
is provided for in case of an opposition equalling at least one- 
third of the members of the Reichstag. 

A strong bill of rights makes all Germans equal before the 
law and puts them in possession of fundamentally the same 
civil rights and duties. Titles of nobility are no longer to be 
conferred, as is also the case with honorary orders. The right 
of emigration is maintained. Foreign-speaking people within 
the boundaries of the nation are allowed unrestricted use of 
their language, even for instruction in the schools. Arbitrary 
arrest and imprisonment are forbidden. Within the limits ol 
general legislation, freedom of speech, of assembly, and of 
the press are guaranteed to all German citizens. It may be 
said that on paper the new constitution of Germany is as liberal 
as any other extant. It places the control of the government 



PRUSSIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 1871-1918 217 

much more directly in the hands of the people than does the- 
constitution of the United States. 

Educational Provisions. — One would natural!}' expect a 
rather thoroughgoing change in many features of German edu- 
cation, under the new political institutions. Many of the 
changes which are proposed recall the demands of the teachers 
made three-quarters of a century ago during the revolutionary 
forties. At last the training of teachers of all grades is to be 
made a part of higher education. Supervision of schools is to 
be conducted by technically trained officials. Instruction in 
the primary schools is to be free and the principle is reaffirmed 
of compulsory attendance up to the age of fourteen in a school 
for general education, to be followed to the age of eighteen by 
attendance in a continuation school. "Upon a basic school for 
everyone is erected the middle and higher school system. For 
this superstructure the rule for guidance is the multiplicity of 
life's callings, and the acceptance of a child in a particular 
school depends upon his qualifications and inclinations and 
not upon the economic and social position or the religion of his 
parents." As far as possible the confessional organization of 
schools is to be adhered to. A separate clause gives the promise 
of aiding poor children through scholarships to take advan- 
tage of education in the middle and higher schools, including 
maintenance allowances for the parents of especially gifted chil- 
dren. Private schools are to be allowed, subject to state ap- 
proval and open to state inspection, provided that they main- 
tain standards equal to those of the public schools. The 
constitution further declares that "moral education, civic 
sentiment, and personal and professional service in the 
spirit of German patriotism and international reconciliation 
are to be striven for in all the schools." 

It is impossible at the present time to estimate the signifi- 
cance of the political and educational changes which the new 
constitution inaugurates. The problems of the reconstruction 
period are numerous and difficult in Germany as they are in 
many other countries deeply affected by the war. It will be 



2i8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

some time before we can be certain that the liberal promises 
of the new constitution will be redeemed. 



ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical and Institutional Background. — Hayes, A 

Political and Social History of Modern Europe, Vol. II; Hazen, Europe 
Since 181 5; Marriott and Robertson, The Evolution of Modern Prussia; 
Dawson, Tlie Evolution of Modern Germany; Howe, Socialized Ger- 
many. 

Education Sources. — Much material is to be found in Lewin, Ent- 
wicklung der Preussischen Volksschnle ; Translation of General Regula- 
tions of 1872 is to be found in English Special Reports, Vol. I, and in 
Perry, German Elementary Education ; "The German Emperor's Address 
at the Berlin School Conference, iSqo" is given in Educational Review, 
Vol. I, and in Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 
i8go. Vol. I. 

Secondary Accounts. — Alexander, The Prussian Elementary Schools; 
Kandel, The Training of Elementary School Teachers in Germany; 
Kandel, Education in Germany, in Sandiford, Comparative Education; 
Lewin, Entwicklung der Preussischen Volksschule; Paulsen, German 
Education Past and Present; Russell, German Higher Schools; Russell, 
"Education for Citizenship," Teachers College Record, March, 1Q19; 
Scott, Patriots in the Making; Tews, Ein Jahrhundert Preussischer 
Schulgeschichte. 



PART III 
ENGLAND 



CHAPTER XI 

THE OLD ORDER AND THE INDUSTRIAL 

REVOLUTION (FROM ABOUT 

1785 TO 1832) 

Economic Conditions. — In most respects the England of 
1785 remained the England of the Revolution of 1689. It 
continued to be dominantly rural and to produce, except in 
off-years, more grain than it consumed. The century which pre- 
ceded the application of steam to manufacturing operations had 
seen, indeed, tremendous developments in the textile and other 
industries, and much progress in respect to finance and com- 
merce; but those changes took place through the extension 
of familiar conditions, — the multiplication of instances rather 
than the development of new forms of organization. 

Before the invention of the spinning jenny (1764), Ark- 
wright's spinning machine (1769), Compton's "mule" (1779), 
Cartwright's power loom (1784), Whitney's cotton gin (1792), 
and Watt's steam engine (1785), all the processes of manu- 
facture were carried on by hand. The hand machines were 
owned either by small masters or by large masters who rented 
them out to smaller masters and journeymen. In the same 
way, the raw materials might be purchased by the small master, 
who would sell the finished product for what it would bring, or 
they might be provided by a merchant clothier, who would 
pay wages for the manufacturing- process and take all the 
profits that would accrue to the entire series of transactions 
from purchase of raw materials to sale of finished goods. 
Manufacturing was carried on in the home of the master, who 
worked side by side with his journeymen and apprentices. 
Practically all industrial processes were carried on in rural 
villages, and the weaver, or spinner, or maker of nails, was 
at one and the same time artisan and farmer. He kept a cow 
that pastured on the commons and cultivated a small patch of 

22: 



222 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

ground for his own use. The manufactured articles were 
gathered together from the rural villages, chiefly in northern 
and eastern England, and eventually found their way to the 
seaports where they became the cargo for a foreign commerce 
that reached the entire world. In the cities and large towns, 
the old guild system had come entirely under the control of 
the wealthy masters, who reaped large profits out of the ex- 
panding domestic and foreign trade. Between masters and 
workmen a sharp distinction had come into existence and it 
had become practically impossible for any journeyman or small 
master to break into the close corporation of the liveried mas- 
ters. 

In rural England, conditions that had come about largely 
during the last years of Elizabeth's reign continued without 
significant change. Titled landowners and the landed gentry 
owned most of the land, which they rented to those who farmed 
it. The small farmer, or yeoman, had lost the social impor- 
tance which he had enjoyed in the earlier history of England, 
and landless farm laborers made up the bulk of the rural popu- 
lation. 

Social Classes. — The economic conditions which have just 
been described had their counterpart in a rather definite sys- 
tem of social classification. Social importance continued to 
reside in the ownership of land. Accordingly the large land- 
owning nobility were the head of the social system, with the 
landed gentry following them in order. The man who had 
become wealthy in trade or manufacturing acquired land for 
the sake of the social position which land ownership carried 
with it and which could be attained in no other way. The city 
merchant and manufacturer thus became identified with the 
landed gentry. Below the social groups named, there were the 
small masters and the small independent farmers or important 
renters. Below them came the shopkeepers, the artisans, the 
domestic servants, and the agricultural laborers. This social 
classification was not absolute. There were no legal restric- 
tions upon the individual as there were in Prussia at that 
time. If he had ability and character he could change his 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 223 

social position. Indeed, the rapid increase in the total wealth 
of England through the development of manufactures, gave 
business opportunities that could be translated into social ad- 
vancement. The journeymen under the conditions of the 
domestic system might become independent masters, and the 
small master might prosper, become wealthy, and buy land, 
thus securing social recognition. As compared with eighteenth 
century conditions in Prussia or in France before the Revolu- 
tion, the individual in England enjoyed considerable oppor- 
tunity of improving his social position. As compared with 
the like opportunities offered under the conditions of life in 
America in the nineteenth century, English society was com- 
paratively static. There were social classes with pretty 
definitely fixed limitations. There was some social movement, 
but, in general, the individual found himself born into a social 
group and only in exceptional instances did he get out of that 
group. He accepted the classification which society prescribed 
for him and found in it a considerable measure of security, 
comfort, and self-respect. There was, however, great dis- 
proportion in the distribution of wealth. There was a vast 
army of poor and poverty was on the increase. 

The English Government. — English government in the 
eighteenth century was pointed to by French liberals of that 
period as ideal. As compared with the continental monarchies 
of that day, England's king was largely shorn of power and 
his prerogatives were closely defined in constitutional charters. 
The real seat of government was in the Parliament, which 
was composed of an hereditary and ex officio House of Lords, 
and a representative House of Commons. The judiciary was 
independent of royal removal. Parliament had control of the 
army and the revenues. The king's ministry was the execu- 
tive department of government and it was composed of mem- 
bers of the two houses of Parliament. The principle had 
been firmly established that the ministry stood or fell as it 
retained or lost the support of a parliamentary majority. 

It is quite common to speak of the English government in 
the eighteenth century as a democracy; but that term so ap- 



224 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

plied is only a relative designation. If democracy is taken to 
mean constitutional control of the acts of the king and govern- 
ment by representatives of the people, then England was a 
democracy in the eighteenth century. When, however, we 
come to consider the source and mode of selection of the repre- 
sentatives of the people, it is obvious that that democracy 
was extremely limited. The House of Lords was composed of 
the hereditary nobility and the princes of the Church. The 
members of Parliament were returned from boroughs in a 
variety of ways, but usually by the wealthy men who enjoyed 
the borough franchise or were members of the close borough 
corporation. In the counties, the franchise was practically 
limited to large landholders. The disposition of seats among 
the boroughs was largely traditional and many boroughs that 
had become unimportant continued to send their representa- 
tives to the House of Commons, while others, larger and more 
important in every way, were not represented at all. The 
tremendous growth in urban population which resulted from 
the industrial revolution after about 1785, accentuated these 
discrepancies and led eventually to the Reform Act of 1832. 
Thus it is seen that, while England had representative govern- 
ment in the eighteenth century, that government continued up 
to 1832 to represent only the large landowners and those who 
had become wealthy in trade. The small farmer, the renter, 
the shopkeeper, the small master, the artisan, the domestic 
servant, and the farm laborer, were without any voice in the 
government whatever. 

By about 1785 a strong reform movement was well under 
way. The religious labors of the Wesleys and Whitefield had 
brought about a far-reaching spiritual revival. Literature 
had abandoned the heartless technical perfection of the age of 
Queen Anne, and under the leadership of Goldsmith, Gray, 
Robert Burns, and Crabbe had begun to picture the virtues 
and hardships of the common people. Even in Parliament a 
new sensitiveness to the unfairness of social and political con- 
ditions was shown in the passage of a new law governing the 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 225 

relief of paupers in 1782, the grant of legislative independence 
to Ireland in the same year, and in the Reform Bill introduced 
by the Duk^ of Richmond in 1 780. which provided for annual 
parliaments elected by manhood suffrage. The political 
changes which took place in France after 1789 and the ex- 
cesses committed by the popular party, soon brought about 
in England a deep-seated distrust of government by the people. 
As a result even the friends of reform grew cold to proposals of 
political and social change, and soon the death-grapple with 
Napoleon absorbed the energies of the entire nation. A gen- 
eration was to pass before political reform again began actively 
to be considered. 

Local Government. — Local government in the counties, 
except for the chartered boroughs was in the hands of the 
justices of the peace. The justices of the peace, meeting in the 
Court of Quarter Sessions, were the judicial as well as the 
administrative officials of the counties. They were appointed 
by the Crown and were chosen almost exclusively from among 
the large landholders. 

The parish constituted a civil division which was of signifi- 
cance mainly as the area for the administration of the poor law. 
In parish meetings attended by all the inhabitants or freemen, 
churchwardens and overseers of the poor were elected by the 
voice of all The overseers of the poor and the churchwardens 
ex officio administered the aid given to the poor by the parish. 
The parishes did not follow county lines, sometimes being in 
two counties 

The boroughs were separate units of local government, but in 
many cases they were subordinate in certain matters to the 
county justices of the peace. Some boroughs lay in two 
counties, and they might include parts of three or four 
parishes without including all of any single parish. The 
boroughs were given certain rights of self-government by special 
charters, and up to 1835 there was no uniformity whatever 
in their administration or in the legal privileges which they 
enjoyed. As has been said above, in many cases the governing 



226 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINGE 1789 

body of the borough was a self-perpetuating corporation. It 
might be added that frequently enough it governed to the 
advantage of the class which enjoyed political power. 

Education under the Old Order. — In the aristocratic 
social organization of eighteenth century England, education 
was practically reserved for the members of the ruling classes. 
Education was regarded as a voluntary affair, to be had by 
those who desired it for their children and could pay for it. 
The courts had ruled that at common law no parent was under 
compulsion to give his children a literary education, however 
meager. The government refused to consider education to be 
a matter in which the state should participate. Such schools 
as existed were the result of private benevolence or initiative. 
They did not draw a penny of support out of the national 
exchequer. They were the result of no government plan or 
statute, and they were not controlled by the government in 
respect to curriculum or discipline. Only in one particular 
had the government interfered in their operations, namely, 
to see to it that the grammar school teachers were orthodox 
Anglicans and that they should swear it to be a treasonable 
act to take up arms against the ruling prince. Even this 
control had been greatly relaxed by court decisions in the late 
seventeenth century and by various acts passed about the same 
time in the interest of religious toleration. 

A large proportion of the English secondary schools that 
came down into the nineteenth century had their origin before 
the Reformation and had successfully weathered that trying 
educational crisis. The oldest of these in the list prepared by 
the Schools Inquiry Commission' (1868) was founded in the 
reign of William II (1087-1100) and two of the most famous 
of the great public schools, Winchester and Eton, were founded 
in 1387 and 1441 respectively. By far the greater part of 
them, 558 in number, originated in the period covered 
between the reigns of Henry VIII and 'James II (1509-1688). 
Many of the Tudor foundations were simply reorganizations 

'See report of Schools Inquiry Commission, 1868, Vol. I, appendix 
IV. 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 227 

and refoundations of funds that had been devoted to the sup- 
port of schools in monasteries and chantries before those in- 
stitutions were repressed by legislation of Henry VIII. Many 
also were new foundations arising from the educational zeal 
of private philanthropists. The founding tendency did not 
cease with James II. for we note in the list named above that 
there were 185 grammar school foundations established in the 
period between 1688 and 1865. The comparison between the 
earlier and the later periods of secondary school foundation is 
apparently unfavorable to the later period ; but the difference is 
probably more than offset by the many elementary schools that 
were established out of private benevolence and the very ex- 
tensive contributions made to charity schools during that time. 
There was a small number of grammar schools that came to 
draw their student body from all over England, and were the 
richest and the most largely attended. They were with a few 
exceptions boarding schools and by the end of the eighteenth 
century each had developed its own store of school tradition 
and was governed by an intricate set of schoolboy "mores." 
Among the great public schools were Winchester, Eton, Harrow, 
and Rugby. The public school was, however, only a variant 
from the general type of grammar school. 

Aristocratic Nature of the Grammar Schools. — As one 
reads the record of the title deeds of these grammar schools 
there can be little doubt as to the democratic intentions of the 
founders. The schools were established to provide educational 
facilities in a society that did not have enough schools to 
supply the demand for educated men. They were likewise 
established to help poor boys to an education. But even from 
the beginning the word "poor" as it occurred in title deeds was 
interpreted in some cases to mean poor sons of gentlemen, 
but when in other cases even that interpretation was impos- 
sible, other means of evasion were found. Laurence Sheriff, 
for example, who founded Rugby School by his will in 1567, 
intended it to be a school for the boys of his home and one 
or two other parishes. Himself a successful grocer and coming 
from the common people, he intended his benefaction to serve 



2 28 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 17S9 

the needs of the class from which he came. Gradually, how- 
ever, Rugby School began to acquire a national clientele and 
the care of the boarders taken by the master came to be much 
the more important phase of the school's activities. The sons 
of the local butcher and grocer were out of place among the 
gentlemen's sons and they gradually ceased to attend. In 
order to meet the legal requirements of the deed of trust the 
managers of the school finally provided an independent ele- 
mentary school for the local boys. In many of the grammar 
schools, and this was especially true of the larger public 
schools, the tuition and maintenance scholarships were taken 
up by boys of the upper classes exclusively, or the supple- 
mentary fees were made so high that only a fairly well-to-do 
family could take advantage of them. In some of the smaller 
grammar schools, the attendance of local boys from poor fami- 
lies justified the benevolent intentions of the founders, but 
even in those cases, where the master was allowed to take addi- 
tional pupils for pay to maintain a boarding establishment, 
the free pupils suffered under invidious distinctions.^ 

The hardening of class lines in England was progressive, 
beginning definitely with the reign of Elizabeth. It is no less 
true that the upper classes progressively took over the gram- 
mar schools for the education of their own children to the 
practical exclusion of children of the lower orders of society. 
By the end of the eighteenth century the larger public schools 
were possessed by the upper classes and were attended by the 
sons of the nobility, the country gentry, the merchant princes, 
and the professional class. The smaller and more local gram- 
mar schools were largely patronized by the members of the 
middle commercial class and by the poorer members of the 
landowning and professional groups. 

The Nationalizing Influence of the Great Public Schools 
and the Universities. — Certainly there was nothing in the 
curriculum of the great public schools of England in the 

^See Reports of the Public Schools Commission, 1864, and the 
Schools Inquiry Commission, 1867. 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 229 

eighteenth century that could be described as nationalistic. 
The studies had no national flavor whatever. There was no 
instruction in the English language or literature, in English 
history, geography, or civil government. As far as the subjects 
of instruction were concerned, the grammar schools might as 
well have been in any other country. The boy's entire 
scholastic effort was expended in learning Latin grammar, 
writing Latin prose or verse, and construing Latin classics, or 
in similar exercises in Greek. Even that limited academic 
content was poorly mastered. 

But there were other aspects of the life in a great public 
school that must have been of very great national significance. 
The sons of the ruling class of England, who in turn were to 
possess the seats of Parliament, wear the bishops' lawn sleeves, 
stand at the king's elbow in the Ministry, captain the men-of- 
war, lead the king's armies, control the administration of far-off 
subject empires, — all these youth, with unimportant exceptions, 
were gathered into the larger public schools. There, by the 
peculiar form of discipline followed in those schools, they were 
given practice in self-government. They learned how to 
obey and how to rule. They learned respect for their class 
code. They learned to reach agreements, to effect compro- 
mises, and somehow to get along with the business of the 
schoolboy day. They made personal acquaintances and con- 
tracted friendships among the group that was destined by its 
very selection to furnish the future rulers of England. Every 
school had its long list of "old boys" who had helped to make 
English history. Their names were carved into the walls of 
the schoolrooms and the private studies or on the table-tops 
in the refectory. The very walls of those great public school i 
were reminiscent of the glories of England's past and eloquent 
of the duty of national service. There may have been no in- 
tention of creating a national atmosphere or of preparing the 
youthful generation for national service, but who can doubt 
that the great public schools exerted tremendous influence 
in giving the sons of the ruling class a national unity, a na- 



230 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

tional loyalty, and a preparation for national service? One can 
easily understand the remark attributed to Wellington that the 
battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. 

The characteristics developed in the great public schools 
were carried on to the two old and only English universities, 
Oxford and Cambridge. The slender intellectual baggage that 
had been picked up in the secondary schools was also trans- 
ported thither, but it is generally agreed that it was not greatly 
augmented, in most cases, by the period of university resi- 
dence. There were, to be sure, brilliant exceptions to the gen- 
eral indifference to serious intellectual work. The universities 
were, however, largely given over to social and mildly intel- 
lectual pursuits. They were the meeting place, on a maturer 
level, of the sons of the rulers who had assimilated the code and 
the tradition of their class in the great public schools, and the 
friendships of the secondary school were expanded to include a 
larger portion of the socially and politically important. The 
university graduates went out from Oxford and Cambridge to 
take over their patrimony and to rule half the world. 

Provision for the Education of Poor Children. — As has 
already been said, the education of his children continued to 
be the private concern of the parent up to and long after 1800. 
To a limited extent the children of the poor enjoyed the oppor- 
tunity of attending the elementary classes offered in local 
schools founded by benevolent testators. Where such schools 
did not exist, it seems to have been a common practice for 
private parties, usually "school dames," to open elementary 
schools in which only slight fees were charged and in which the 
studies taught were rudimentary. It is probable that many of 
all except the poorest, sent their children to such a school for 
a longer or shorter period. 

The children of the working class were expected to gain 
the training that was needed for their social and economic 
role under the system of apprenticeship. The boy who was 
to become a weaver entered the home and the employ of a 
master Aveaver and learned from him his art. The girl who 
was to become a domestic servant was early in life put out to 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 231 

service. The arts were simple and to be learned by rule of 
thumb. Little education was needed for proficiency in the 
various hand occupations, for the day when drawing was neces- 
sary to the mechanic or chemistry to the farmer, had not yet 
come. As for the duties of citizenship, those were not for the 
common man. He was ruled by his social superiors in the lot 
to which God had called him. 

It began to be seen, however, at the end of the seventeenth 
century that large numbers of the children of the poorest 
orders of society were not securing even a minimum of school- 
ing; and philanthropic persons cooperated in founding and 
maintaining "charity schools" to teach morals and religion 
through teaching the children how to read the Bible and to 
say the catechism of the Established Church. The charity 
school movement received great acceleration in the last years 
of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth 
when long years of war and the economic adjustments that 
followed in the train of the industrial revolution, had increased 
the numbers and the moral delinquency of the children of the 
very poor. More extended consideration of the philanthropic 
movement in education may better be taken up after a glance 
at the epoch-making industrial changes which England under- 
went after about 1785. 

The Industrial Revolution 

Earlier pages of this book have taken account of the indus- 
trial revolution, but it seems appropriate to treat that great 
social phenomenon in a little more special detail in connection 
with the country where it first occurred. Of course we cannot 
do more than point out some of its more obvious features and 
their bearing, immediate and more remote, upon the field of 
education. 

In the words of Arnold Toynbee, "The Wealth oj Nations ^ 
and the steam engine (with the great inventions, like the spin- 

^A book by Adam Smith which first gave to English readers the 
laissez-faire economic theory. 



2 32 XATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

ning jenny and the power loom, which accompanied or fol- 
lowed it) destroyed the old world and built a new one. The 
spinning wheel and the handloom were silenced, and manu- 
factures were transported from scattered villages and quiet 
homesteads to factories and cities filled with noise. Villages 
became towns, towns became cities, and factories started up 
on barren heath and deserted waste. . . . Rapid as the evolu- 
tion was, it did not come at once. In the cotton trade, for 
instance, first the hand wheel was thrown away, and mills with 
water frames and spinning jennies were built on the sides of 
streams; then the mule was invented, which supplied the 
weaver with unlimited quantities of yam, and raised his wages 
and increased the demand for loom-shops, causing even old 
barns and carthouses hastily pierced with windows to be 
adapted to that purpose; finally there came the introduction 
of the power loom, the general application of steam to drive 
machinery, and the erection of the gigantic factories that we 
see around us at the present time. By these last changes, the 
final blow was struck at the little master, half manufacturer 
and half farmer, and in his place sprang up the great capitalist 
employer, the owner of hundreds of looms, the employer of 
hundreds of men, buying and selling in every market on the 
globe." ' 

Social and Political Effects of the Industrial Revolu- 
tion. — The industrial changes which constituted the industrial 
revolution brought in their train a number of important social 
and political effects. In the first place the new methods of 
manufacturing in creating a new capitalistic class distinct from 
the landowning and commercial aristocracy of the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries, disturbed the old basis of political 
control. The new class of rich men for the most part had their 
property and their residence in the older boroughs which were 
rapidly increasing in population or in new cities that had 
sprung up almost overnight. In the case of an older borough 
which had representation in the House of Commons, the choice 
of members might lie in the hands of the city corporation with 

' Toynbee, The Industrial Revolution, p. i8q. 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 233 

its exclusive self-chosen membership, from which the new 
manufacturing interests might be excluded. In this event the 
new capitalist and mill owner was not represented in national 
politics. It might even be that the town in which his fac- 
tories were situated had no parliamentary seat allotted to it. 
In the case of purely local administration the new order of 
rich business men might find themselves equally powerless 
with the borough council. As a result of these disadvantages, 
the class made wealthy by the industrial revolution began to 
demand franchise reform and the redistribution of seats in 
the House of Commons. They demanded to be added to the 
list of those who ruled England. In turn their sons were to 
be added to the group of those who sought their education in 
the great public schools and the universities. 

A second social result of the industrial revolution was to 
make more hard and fast the line between master and work- 
man. In the old days, the little master had worked beside 
his men. He was approachable and his way of life was not 
greatly different from that of his employee. It was even pos- 
sible, under favorable conditions, for the thrifty workman in 
turn to become small and, mayhap, in time, great master. 
With the change to great factories, with stock-company-owned 
machinery, the master was removed to a different world from 
that in which his workmen lived. It even became difficult in 
a joint-stock undertaking, to know who a man's master was. 
And it became almost impossible for a workman ever to be- 
come more than the tender of a machine. 

As a further result of the factory system, the owner- 
employer was at a great advantage in the matter of the con- 
ditions of employment. The workmen could bargain with a 
man, but they were at a decided disadvantage when it came 
to bargaining with a system. They found that the only way 
to gain any advantage was through the formation of labor- 
unions. Through organization they hoped to be able to do 
as a group what they were powerless to do as individuals. 
They were interested in wages and hours and conditions of 
labor. In time they, too, came to demand representation in 



234 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

the law-making bodies so that the law might be made to serve 
their own peculiar class-interests. They needed to have labor 
organizations made legal and they desired to have a new inter- 
pretation put upon the industrial strike. The aspiration of 
the laboring man for political power was to a certain extent 
paralleled by his desire for an education for himself and his 
children. 

Increase of Child Labor. — The last social effect of the 
industrial revolution to be named here is the one which se- 
cured the most immediate response. The new machinery run 
by steam and water power, made possible the employment of 
large numbers of women and children. They could do much of 
the work required as well as men could or even better, and 
they could be secured for smaller wages. In some families the 
mother and all the children above seven or eight years of age 
were employed in textile mills, while the father of the family 
was by necessity out of work. 

"In 1802 Sir Robert Peel directed the attention of Parlia- 
ment to an abuse which was perhaps the grossest of the day, 
i.e., the miserable condition of apprentices in cotton mills, and 
did it with such force that he was able to bring about the 
enactment of the first statute in English history relating to 
factory employment. In their anxiety to relieve the ratepayers, 
the authorities of the parishes, it developed, were accustomed 
to dispose of pauper children as apprentices, transporting them 
to the mills, where, while nominally learning a trade, they were 
reduced to veritable slavery. Men made a business of pro- 
curing and supplying apprentices, bringing together groups of 
workhouse children from neighboring parishes and conveying 
them by wagons or canal boats to factory districts where they 
were likely to be in demand, and subsequently disposing of 
them on the best terms possible to factory owners in need of 
'hands.' Apprentices were lodged and fed, under conditions 
that were execrable, in cheap houses adjoining the factories; 
they were placed in charge of overseers whose pay was de- 
pendent upon the amount of work they could compel to be 
accomplished; they were flogged, fettered, tortured, and in gen- 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 235 

eral subjected to repression and cruelty. . . . Meager pay was 
sometimes provided, but as a rule the apprentice's only com- 
pensation was poor and insufficient food, the cheapest sort of 
clothing, and a place to sleep in a filthy shed." ^ 

The First Factory Education Provision. — The Health 
and Morals of Apprentices Act, 1802, which passed in response 
to the conditions which had been revealed, made illegal for 
factory labor the apprenticing of children under nine years 
of age; limited their working hours to twelve a day; forbade 
night work; required attendance at church services at least 
once a month; and laid down the following educational pro- 
visions: 

"That every apprentice shall be instructed, in some part 
of every working day, for the first four years at least of his 
or her apprenticeship, in the usual hours of work, in reading, 
writing and arithmetic, or either of them, according 'to the 
age and ability of such apprentice, by some discreet and proper 
person, to be provided and paid by the master or mistress 
of such apprentice, in some room or place in such mill or 
factory to be set apart for that purpose; and that the time 
hereby directed to be allotted for such instruction as afore- 
said shall be deemed and taken on all occasions as part of the 
periods limited by this Act, during which any such apprentice 
shall be employed or compelled to work." 

The carrying out of the provisions of the Act was left to 
justices of the peace and "visitors" whom they were to desig- 
nate. Ogg, in the work quoted above, says that the local 
authorities did not take their duties seriously and that it is 
the general consensus of opinion that, in the main, the law 
did not achieve its purpose. The Act, however, is the first of 
a long series of English employment acts which have definite 
bearing on the subject of education. 

In 18 19 the employment of children under the age of nine 
years in cotton mills and factories was prohibited; but the 
educational clauses of the Act of 1802 were not extended to 
employed children. 

* Ogg, Economic Development of Modern Europe, p. 373. 



236 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 



Philanthropy in English Education 

With the removal of the process of manufacturing from the 
semi-rural surroundings of the domestic system to the cities, 
the living conditions of the workmen underwent a notable 
deterioration. The crowded streets and filthy alleys, the con- 
stricted living quarters with loss of personal privacy, and the 
grind of machine operation unrelieved by rural avocations, 
led to a great increase in the consumption of high-test alcoholic 
liquors and in the amount of visible vice. The children were 
subject to all the impressions of this heightened depravity. 
They were also largely let loose from parental oversight and 
correction, where such would have been beneficial, because 
the adults of the family were at work, or at least the mother 
was. Added to the hardships caused by the transition from 
country to city life, as city life then was, and the rigors of 
early factory labor, there was a vast amount of orphanage and 
poverty-caused neglect of children owing to the demands made 
upon England at that time for carrying on the wars against 
Napoleon. 

In response to these shocking conditions existent among the 
less fortunate members of the working classes, private philan- 
thropy exerted itself to do something to improve the situation. 
Common opinion turned to the years of childhood as the most 
fruitful for the improvement of society at large. If some 
way might be found, it was thought, to remove the children 
from the degradation and vice which were their only environ- 
ment, the oncoming generation might be placed in a position 
to improve in habits of self-control and industry. 

The first extensive English attempt at regeneration of the 
neglected children of the very poor through education, if we 
leave out of account the work of the Society for the Propaga- 
tion of Christian Knowledge founded in the last years of the 
seventeenth century, was the Sunday School movement, 
initiated by Robert Raikes in the slums of Gloucester in 1780. 
The main objective of these Sunday Schools was to quicken the 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 237 

moral and religious feelings of the children whom they reached. 
To teach the pupils to read the Bible, to spell, and to write, and 
to have them absorb practical principles of religion and good 
conduct, were the outside aims of these schools. The Sunday 
School movement rapidly spread over England and in 1785 
there was founded a Sunday School Society. Before 181 1, 
when the founder of the first Sunday School died, there were 
nearly five hundred thousand pupils in such schools in the 
British Isles alone. However, the greatest development of 
philanthropic education did not take place through those Sun- 
day Schools, which came to stress more and more the religious 
side of instruction, but through other associations which aimed 
at setting up real elementary schools for the children of the 
poor. Chief among these associations are "The National 
Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Prin- 
ciples of the Established Church," commonly referred to as the 
"National Society," and "The British and Foreign Society." 
The work of the British and Foreign Society may be traced 
back to the setting up of a school in Southwark, London, in 
1798, by Joseph Lancaster, for the purpose of counteracting 
the vice and illiteracy of the youthful city population. In this 
school Lancaster put into operation a monitorial system of 
organization by means of which the older pupils were utilized 
to assist in the instruction of the younger children. There was 
a great deal of contemporary dispute as to the priority of 
Lancaster's discovery and application of this system, which 
had been either previously or simultaneously described by 
Dr. Andrew Bell, whose work was the origin of the other 
society named above — the National Society. 

After Lancaster had conducted his schools and his propa- 
ganda in their favor for ten years, he found himself hope- 
lessly in debt. His work had commended itself, however, to a 
group of philanthropic and liberal thinking men ^ho put him 
on his "feet again through the incorporation of the "Royal 
Lancasterian Institution" in 1808. Within a few years there- 
after Lancaster withdrew from the "Institution" and later on 
from England, but the society under the name of the British 



238 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

and Foreign Society continued and enlarged the work that 
had been begun. From the outset and to the conclusion of its 
long period of activity, the British and Foreign Society was 
non-sectarian in its management and in its religious instruc- 
tion. 

It was just this non-sectarian quality of the Lancasterian 
schools that attracted the sympathy and aid of such liberal 
thinkers as Bentham, James Mill, and Francis Place, and, at 
the same time, aroused the fears and opposition of the more 
conservative in politics and religion. Accordingly, the "Na- 
tional Society" was founded in 181 1 by the church party to 
use the same monitorial system as was used in the Lancasterian 
schools and to reach the same neglected part of the popula- 
tion. Its long and honorable history, paralleling that of the 
"British and Foreign Society," will be seen to be closely con- 
nected with the development of English popular education 
throughout the whole of the nineteenth century. 

Yet another movement, namely, the Infant School move- 
ment, for education of the children of the poor had its incep- 
tion from their unfortunate condition. It had an independent 
development in the British Isles and exhibited contemporane- 
ous development in other countries. With the factory system 
and its increased employment of women and children, the 
smaller children of the household were allowed to suffer 
unbelievable neglect. With the purpose of doing something to 
relieve their unhappy condition, Robert Owen established an 
Infant School in 181 6 at New Lanark, Scotland, in connection 
with the manufacturing establishment of which he was part 
owner. This school was designed primarily to take care of 
children from the age when they could walk alone and did 
not require the constant attention of an older person. These 
little children were to be collected in suitable school sur- 
roundings and provided with an environment which was to be 
not only morally wholesome and sanitary, but educative in the 
rudiments of reading, writing, number, and common school 
subjects. This school soon was imitated in England, and be- 
fore long Samuel Wilderspin became chief exponent of the 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 239 

principles of this type of school. In 1824 the "Infant School 
Society" was founded and had an active existence for sixteen 
years. Infant schools later became a part of the school sys- 
tem of Great Britain. 



Early Parliamentary Interest in Education 

In 1807 Whitbread introduced a bill in Parliament, known 
as the Parochial Schools Bill, which provided for the estab- 
lishment of a system of rate-aided parochial schools. "The 
scheme provided for two years' free schooling for all poor chil- 
dren between seven and fourteen years of age, in reading, 
writing, and arithmetic, and for girls, in addition, needlework, 
knitting, etc.; schools were to be established by the vestries, 
or failing these, by the magistrates, with power to levy a local 
rate not exceeding is. for maintenance. The clergy and parish 
officers were to be the managers. The Bill raised for the first 
time in Parliament the question 'Whether it was proper that 
education should be diffused among the poorer classes.' In 
introducing the measure its promoter anticipated the usual 
objections that education would make the poor despise their 
lot, that it would make them indolent, and refractory, and 
would set a premium on seditious books. He pointed out that 
if the schools were not to educate, the gutter would. But in 
vain. The Bill was unpopular in the country. INIany petitions 
were presented against it and not a single one for it. Parlia- 
ment as a body did not believe in popular education, and 
though the Bill passed the Commons it was rejected by the 
Upper House." ^ 

The Report of the Select Committee of the House of 
Commons. — In 1816, Mr. Henry Brougham, afterwards Lord 
Brougham, succeedsd in having appointed a Select Committee 
of the House of Commons "to inquire into the education of 
the lower orders of the Metropolis." The scope of the inves- 
tigation was later extended to cover the whole country. The 

^ Birchenough, History of Elementary Education in England and 
Wales, pp. 45-6. 



240 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

Committee secured a great deal of information in regard to the 
lamentable state of public education, and made a number of 
wise recommendations regarding ways and means of remedy- 
ing existing conditions, but no action was taken by Parlia- 
ment at the time. 

The evidence given before the Select Committee of the House 
of Commons indicates that the education of the children of 
London was taken care of, to the extent to which it was done 
at all, by private schools maintained by the fees of pupils, by 
endowed schools, some of which were exclusively charity en- 
dowments, by charity schools of the older type, maintained by 
private subscriptions, by charity schools of the newer type, 
maintained by private subscriptions and using the monitorial 
system of instruction, and by Sunday Schools. By all these 
means combined, in many populous districts of London, less 
than half the children were securing an "education," if that 
word may be applied to the acquisition of ability to read badly 
in the Testament and the memorizing of snatches of religious 
dogma. The same conditions were to be found in all the newer 
industrial cities of England and pretty much for the country 
as a whole. 

Limited Objectives of Philanthropic Education. — It 
may not be amiss to say again that England at this time did 
not consider the education of children as a public matter. It 
was the concern of parents, or of philanthropic minded per- 
sons who wished to relieve from their own purses the educa- 
tional destitution of the country just as they did its economic 
or moral destitution. Moreover, even the philanthropists had 
an extremely limited view of the purpose of education for the 
children of the "lower orders of society." Illiteracy was to 
them only an aspect of general moral delinquency, and educa- 
tion was attached to the program of social reform only as a 
means to the larger end of removing profligacy, drunkenness, 
and crime. Education, indeed, was intended mainly to serve 
as a means of opening up the Scriptures to the degraded chil- 
dren of the very poor. The narrow curriculum of the philan- 
thropic schools, its very limited extent, its highly religious 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 241 

content, indicate that teaching children to read was only a 
part of the larger problem of making them temperate, indus- 
trious, thrifty, modest, clean, and interested in church attend- 
ance and social respectability. Indeed, much of the appeal for 
support of charity schools lay in the fact that they offered so 
meager, rather than so extensive, instruction in school sub- 
jects. The educational motive was not to provide opportuni- 
ties for the children of the lower classes to raise themselves to 
superior social stations, but to make them less of an eyesore 
in the face of respectability, less of a challenge to the moral 
susceptibilities of good people, and less open to the blandish- 
ments of political radicals and the temptation to violent social 
disturbance. 

Political Reaction after 1815.— The political attitude of 
Metternich was thoroughly exemplified in England after the 
close of the Napoleonic wars by the Tory majority in Parlia- 
ment and the reactionary Prince Regent, who later ruled as 
king from 1820 to 1830. The peace of 181 5 was followed by 
general business depression and violent labor disorders. The 
radical political agitation which went hand in hand with the 
current economic distress was ruthlessly repressed. A group of 
six acts of Parliament passed in November 1819 among other 
repressive measures, restricted and regulated the right of pub- 
lic meeting, interfered with the freedom of the press, providing 
banishment as the penalty for a second publication of seditious 
matter, and sternly repressed any preparation for armed resist- 
ance. After 1822 the force of reaction was somewhat abated 
and within ten years thereafter some of the new political forces 
created by the Industrial Revolution had become so strong as 
to throw off the Tory control. Meanwhile the philanthropic 
agencies described above continued to grow in importance and 
to increase the opportunities for the education of the poor in 
England. 

During these reactionary years, the champion of popular 
education in Parliament, Lord Brougham, continued his agita- 
tion for government interference. Successive Parliamentary 
committees were appointed to investigate conditions and re- 



242 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

ports were submitted. In 1820 Brougham introduced a Bill 
"for the Better Education of the Poor in England and Wales." 
Owing to general opposition, he withdrew the Bill without al- 
lowing it to go to a vote. Up to the close of the third decade, 
England had done nothing as a government in the direction of 
the establishment or the support of any form of public ele- 
mentary schools. 

ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical Background. — Cheney, Social and Industrial 
History of England; Hayes, A Political and Social History of Modern 
Eiirope; Hazen, Europe Since 1815. 

Education Sources. — Report of the Select Committee of the 
House of Commons, 1816; Report of the Public Schools Commission, 
1864; Report of the Schools Inquiry Commission, 1867; Lancaster, 
Improvements in Education. 

Secondary Accounts. — Birchenough, History of Elementary Educa- 
tion in England; Cubberley, History of Education; DeMontmorency, 
Progress of Education in England; DeMontmorency, State Intervention 
in English Education; Graves, History of Education in Modern Times. 



CHAPTER XII 

A BENEVOLENT ARISTOCRACY AND EARLY 
STATE INTERVENTION IN EDUCATION 

(1832- I 867) 

The New Spirit of Political Reform. — Early in the 
twenties it became evident that a new spirit of reform was 
coming into the public life of England. A law passed in 1823 
reformed the barbarous penal code which remained upon the 
statute books, but which had in practice consistently been 
shorn of its horrors. By this act the death penalty was re- 
moved from about one hundred minor offenses. A law passed 
in 1824 made it legal for workrhen to enter into combinations 
for the purpose of securing better wages and conditions of 
labor. Up to that time drastic penalties were imposed by a 
long series of statutes running back to the time of Elizabeth 
upon any combinations of workmen for any purpose whatever. 
The year following, 1825, the extremely liberal law of 1824 
was repealed and replaced by a law which greatly curtailed the 
freedom of labor unions and associations as given by the law 
of 1824. The new law made it lawful for workmen to meet 
for a discussion of hours and wages, but out-and-out organiza- 
tion was forbidden and the use of the strike as an economic 
weapon was made punishable by imprisonment. While, under 
the law of 1825, labor unions continued to be illegal, to 
belong to one was no longer a criminal act. A third evidence 
of some change of heart in the Tory government was the Catho- 
lic Emancipation Act of 1829, which gave Catholics practically 
full political rights. Most significant of all, however, was the 
overthrow of the Tory government and the coming into power 
of the Whigs in connection with the agitation for suffrage re- 
form which culminated in the Reform Act of 1832. 

243 



244 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

The Reform Act of 1832. — This is not the place for a 
detailed discussion of the Reform Act of 1832, but it is essen- 
tial to our purpose that we should note the change which it 
brought into English political life. By the Act of 1832, the 
county franchise was extended to include all male copy-holders 
and lease-holders of land that would rent for ten pounds a 
year, and all tenants-at-will holding land that would rent for 
fifty pounds a year. Before that only free-holders of land 
that would rent for forty shillings a year had been allowed to 
vote. In the boroughs, the right to vote for members of Par- 
liament was extended to all men who rented a shop or other 
building at an annual rental of at least ten pounds. The result 
was an increase in the number of persons eligible to vote in 
the counties from 247,000 to 347,000 and in the boroughs from 
188,000 to 286,000. The proportion of electors to general 
population was raised by the terms of the Act to about one 
out of twenty-two.^ By the same Act there was brought about 
a considerable change in the distribution of seats in the 
House of Commons. Some of the smaller towns were deprived 
of their representation or had it reduced, and a number of the 
larger towns had their quota of members increased or were 
given representatives for the first time. 

The most significant political change brought about by the 
Act of 1832 was that it added the new capitalistic class to the 
group that ruled England. This in turn meant that the power 
of the old landowning oligarchy was lessened, and that the 
interests of the new industrial order and the social conditions 
which that order was bringing in its train, would receive 
recognition in national policies. 

The extension of the franchise stopped short of giving the 
vote to the working-classes. They had been active in support 
of the Reform Bill and were disappointed in failing to be given 
political representation. Almost immediately after 1832, they 
began to agitate anew for a widened franchise which was to 
include all adult males. Between 1838 and 1848 the working 

' Hayes, Political and Social History of Modem Europe, Vol. II, 
p. 107. 



BENEVOLENT STATE INTERVENTION 245 

class movement for further reform was known as the Chartist 
Movement. The Chartists demanded universal manhood suf- 
frage, annual parliaments, equal electoral districts, vote by 
ballot, removal of property qualification for members of Par- 
liament, and payment of members. Chartism came to a con- 
clusive failure in 1848. After that time the return of commer- 
cial prosperity largely removed the causes of political and social 
unrest. It was not until the sixties that the demand for work- 
ing class suffrage again became vigorous and widespread. 

Development of Laboring-class Consciousness.— The 
years between 1848 and 1867 were, however, vastly important 
for the development of laboring-class consciousness. The 
workingman was interested in learning to read and write and 
took advantage of such opportunities for schooling as were to 
hand. A series of acts of Parliament which brought about 
the penny daily press made it possible for the first time for 
the workingmen to publish their own organs of publicity. 
Up to 1836 there had been a stamp tax of four-pence on every 
newspaper, periodical, or pamphlet printed, which had been 
imposed from motives of controlling radical agitation. In that 
year the tax was reduced to one penny and even the penny 
stamp tax was abolished in 1855. With the repeal of the 
advertisement duty in 1853 and the paper duty in 1861, the 
so-called "taxes on knowledge" were entirely done away with. 
The effect of this upon the education of the workingman in 
respect to his class interests was very great. "Trade-unionism 
grew rapidly, solidified itself, perfected its machinery, and 
discussed and clarified the demands of the laboring class. The 
effect of this education was apparent later. Workingmen were 
receiving in their unions a kind of education in politics and 
management that was a valuable training for the suffrage 
when they should get it, as they did in 1867." ^ 

Middle Class Social Reform. — The new Whig government 
was firmly set against any further tinkering with the fran- 
chise, but they were alive to the need of much general social 
reform. The period between the two great reforms of 1832 

' Hazcn, Europe Since 1815, p. 457. 



246 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

and 1867 has been characterized as one of bourgeois benevo- 
lence. The ruling classes no less felt their divine right to rule 
England than they had before 1832, and the social legislation 
which they put upon the statute books reflected the preju- 
dices and the conservatism of a wealthy aristocracy. But it 
must be no less admitted that for the most part those laws 
exhibited a truly benevolent intention and were enacted in the 
interest of a broadly-conceived common welfare. 

In 1833 slavery was abolished in all British possessions, and 
in the same year the first effective steps were taken to mitigate 
the system of human slavery which was being carried on in the 
new industrial plants in England. The Act of 1833 aimed a 
blow at the truly frightful conditions of factory labor, espe- 
cially as concerned the employment of little children. By the 
terms of the act, the employment in spinning and weaving 
factories of children under nine years of age was prohibited; 
the hours of labor were limited for children of nine to thir- 
teen years of age to eight hours a day and for young persons 
of thirteen to eighteen to twelve a day; the children were to 
be given two hours of schooling a day and an hour and a half 
for meals; and a system of state inspection was established to 
see to it that the law was lived up to. By the Coal Mines 
Regulation Act of 1842 the employment underground of 
women and children, and of boys under ten in any capacity, 
was prohibited. The Factory Act of 1844 supplemented the 
conditions of the Act of 1833 and made them apply to substan- 
tially all textile factories. Finally, by the "Ten Hours Act" 
of 1847, the maximum number of working hours for all women 
and young persons in textile industries became fifty-eight a 
week, which, with the part-Saturday holiday, meant an average 
of ten hours a day. With the extension of the state's control 
over the employment of children through this series of acts, 
more definite provisions regarding the education of working 
children were made. No child under eight years of age was 
to be employed in a factory at all, and no child under thirteen 
years could be employed for more than six hours and a half 
in a day, or ten hours on alternate days. A child working 



BENEVOLENT STATE INTERVENTION 247 

every day had to attend school three hours and a child work- 
ing alternate days had to attend five hours. Penalties for 
non-compliance were laid upon both parents and mill-occupiers. 
The employer was compelled to pay the schoolmaster for the 
child's tuition (which might be deducted from his wages). 
Inspectors were given power to determine whether or not the 
schools attended by the working children were satisfactory. 
In spite of all the provisions of the laws, however, the New- 
castle Commission in 1861 had to report a very unsatisfactory 
condition in respect to the education of children under the 
Labor Acts. 

A political reform carried out by the new party in power 
that eventually had large indirect bearing upon the improve- 
ment of education was the reconstitution of borough govern- 
ment through the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835. This 
act created a responsible local government in the boroughs, 
elected by all the taxpayers and ten pound renters. While 
the franchise in borough elections was thus limited to the 
middle and upper classes, it took municipal administration out 
of the hands of the narrow city-corporations and created a 
responsible local authority for the cities. The rapid growth 
of the cities as a result of the industrial revolution had brought 
about the need for many improvements in city administration. 
The new form of government made possible the inauguration 
of systems of lighting, fire protection, policing, sanitation, 
water supply, and other necessities of city life. Incidentally, 
it led to consideration on the part of municipalities of the 
urgent need of schools and of ways and means to get them. 

New Local Authorities and Extensions of Central 
Control. — If the reconstruction of the boroughs is to be re- 
garded as a step in the direction of restoring vitality to local 
government, the general tendency of political administration 
during the middle part of the nineteenth century was quite the 
opposite. Indeed, the fifty years between the passage of the 
Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and the Local Government 
Act of 1888 saw a marked increase in the amount of public 
business that was initiated or controlled by the national gov- 



248 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

ernment. The English had had a long tradition of almost com- 
plete autonomy on the part of the county justices of the peace 
and the borough corporations. But a new period had arrived 
when a new set of social conditions called for a type of social 
controls which the old authorities were not likely to supply. 
The new problems of poor-law relief, factory inspection, sani- 
tation, and so forth, were met in part by the erection of new 
local machinery of administration; but in addition the central 
government supervised the work in the new fields of administra- 
tion and, in general, maintained control over the acts of the 
local authorities. In return- for the interference of the central 
government in local affairs, the local authorities were finan- 
cially assisted out of the national treasury. 

The new Poor Law of 1834 called for the creation of a new 
area of local government, namely, the poor-law union, con- 
sisting of groups of parishes. The unions were mapped out by 
the Poor Law Commissioners, who were given power to regu- 
late in very great detail the actions of the local officers, known 
as the board of guardians. The local justices of the peace were 
ex officio members of the board of guardians; the remaining 
members were elected by the rate-payers. In rapid succession 
thereafter, new local authorities were provided for a number 
of specific purposes, such as the maintenance of highways and 
bridges, the provision of cemeteries, and the administration 
of sanitary measures. These various local authorities were 
constituted without reference to county, or parish, or borough 
lines and without reference to already existing local authori- 
ties. They were created ad koc, that is to say, for a particu- 
lar purpose, and did not constitute an authority with any gen- 
eral powers beyond those with which they were created or 
which were added to them by later laws. This intricate 
variety of local areas of government had a center in some 
one or other of the new departments of the national govern- 
ment that were created to have cognizance of equally specific 
fields of interest. The result was a very great increase in the 
amount of government which the people were under, and a 
thoroughgoing change in its location. Whereas, in the 



BENEVOLENT STATE INTERVENTION 249 

eighteenth century the central government hardly interfered 
at all in local affairs, the third quarter of the nineteenth cen- 
tury saw it guiding, even coercing, local authorities in a wide 
range of activities and paying a large part of the local budgets. 

The First Parliamentary Grants for Education 

The extension of the interest of the central government in 
education is a very clear illustration of the tendency in the 
preceding paragraph. The unfavorable state of the education 
of the poor was a matter of common knowledge when the 
Reform Act brought the new Whig party into power. It was 
consistent with their general humanitarian attitude that the 
Whigs should take some action in regard to it. Their first 
step was cautious and experimental, consisting in the appro- 
priation of twenty thousand pounds "to be issued in aid of 
private subscriptions for the erection of school houses for the 
education of the poorer classes of Great Britain." This action 
was taken in 1833, and for six years thereafter the same sum 
was annually appropriated. No special machinery of adminis- 
tration was set up and the money so set aside was paid out 
to managers of schools of the National Society and the British 
and Foreign Society by ordinary treasury procedure. As the 
demand for aid was immediately greater than the supply, only 
the largest schools in the most populous places came to be 
given any grants and then only when two school places were 
supplied for every pound of the government grant. No guar- 
antees were exacted of the recipient and no state supervision 
was provided. 

Agitation for Increased Government Participation in 
Education. — It was generally recognized that the small annual 
contribution made by the government was an altogether inade- 
quate solution of the problem. Parliament during the years 
immediately following the passage of the first grant was the 
scene of active agitation over the education question. Between 
1833 and 1838 no less than four committees were appointed 
to mrike returns on the educational conditions of the country. 



2 50 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

The year 1833 saw the formation of the Manchester Statis- 
tical Society, and the next year of the London Statistical 
Society, which bombarded Parliament and the general public 
with information concerning the social, moral, physical, and 
educational conditions of particular districts. 

Report of the Select Committee of 1838.— The Select 
Committee of 1838 made a "Report on the Education of the 
Poorer Classes in England and Wales," which revealed the 
educational destitution of the larger towns. As there were no 
local education authorities anywhere, the Committee depended 
for its information largely on the reports of local societies, such 
as those mentioned above, that had made educational surveys. 
They also used the annual reports of the two great school 
societies and sent out questionnaires to individuals in the larger 
towns. All this material was brought together in the report 
made to Parliament. 

' The Select Committee accepted as the standard of school 
attendance the proportion of one school child out of every 
eight of the population and declared that there ought to be 
school places in like proportion. It was reported that in the 
five parishes of Westminster, London, one child out of four- 
teen was receiving some sort of schooling, a third of which 
number were in worthless dame schools. It was shown that 
in the parish of Bethnal Green there were from 8,000 to 
10,000 children "not only without daily instruction, but for 
whom no means of daily instruction are provided." Less than 
one in twenty of the population of that populous parish were 
in school. The figures given for Liverpool, Manchester, Bir- 
mingham, Bristol, Sheffield, Leeds, and other important indus- 
trial towns exhibited equal or greater lack of schools. With 
this situation before them, the Committee agreed to the fol- 
lowing resolutions: 

"i. That in the Metropolis and the great towns of England 
I and Wales, there exists a great want of education among the 
' children of the working classes. 

"2. That it is desirable that there should be means of suit- 
able daily education (within the reach of the working classes) 



BENEVOLENT STATE INTERVENTION 251 

for a proportion of not less than about one-eighth part of the 
population. 

"3. That the amount of assistance afforded by Government 
should be regulated as heretofore, subject to modiiication of 
their rules in cases where the poverty of the district was 
proved to require it, the special ground being reported in each 
case. 

''4. That under existing circumstances and under the diffi- 
culties which beset the question, your committee are not pre- 
pared to propose any means for meeting the deficiency beyond 
the continuance and the extension of the grants which are at 
present made by the treasury for the promotion of education, 
through the medium of the National and the British and For- 
eign School Societies." 

"Under existing circumstances and under the difficulties 
which beset the question!" What could have been the circum- 
stances and what the difficulties besetting the question, one 
is impelled to ask, that so thoroughly frightened the committee 
and paralyzed their judgment? 

Disagreement in Parliament concerning Ways and 
Means. — All parties were pretty much in agreement with the 
members of the Select Committee that the education of the 
poor was in dangerously bad state and that something should 
be done to improve it. But they were in complete and bitter 
disagreement as to the ways and means. While the Estab- 
lished Church party and the Dissenters agreed that education 
should be essentially religious and under church direction, the 
Dissenters were unwilling to have the education of all English 
children placed under the domination of the Established 
Church. Both Anglicans and Dissenters joined in opposition 
to the Liberal party, which desired to see religious and secular 
education separated, with the latter under the control of a 
government board of commissioners. There was no lack of 
belief in education for the children of the poor, or of interest 
in it, or of will to provide it. The English public after 1838 
were thoroughly aroused to the necessity for making some 
headway in the provision of elementary schools for that class 



2 52 XATIOXALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

of children. The government itself desired to do something, 
but could not without jeopardizing its Parliamentary ma- 
jority. 

Committee of Privy Council on Education Created. — At 
this juncture there 'was created a Committee of the Privy 
Council on Education "to superintend the application of any 
sums voted by Parliament for the purpose of promoting public 
education." The creation of the Committee of Council on 
Education was a political move to enable the Government to 
make progress in the matter of public elementary education as 
it could, without waiting for a definite solution of all the 
difficulties that beset the passage of an act of Parliament. The 
Committee of Council began its work by voting to establish 
a teachers training college under government control out of a 
fund of 10,000 pounds that had been granted in 1839. In 
this school non-sectarian religious instruction was to be pro- 
vided and no religious distinction was to be made in the admis- 
sion of students. vSpecial provision for religious instruction 
by ministers of the several sects was made. However, the 
opposition that arose to this proposal was so great that the 
Committee of Council rescinded its action and gave the 
money provided for the purpose of teacher training to the 
National Society and the British and Foreign School Society 
for the assistance of like schools which they were maintaining. 

The Committee of the Privy Council on Education further 
declared that it would aid schools not connected with either 
of the two great school societies, and that it would not give 
any money for the support of normal schools or any other 
.'^chools "unless the right of inspection be retained, in order 
to secure a conformity to the regulations and discipline estab- 
lished in the several schools, with such improvements as may 
from time to time be suggested by the Committee." It 
added, "A part of the grant voted in the present year may 
be usefully applied to the purposes of inspection, and to the 
means of acquiring a complete knowledge of the present state 
of education in England and Wales." ^ 

'Minute? of Committee of Council on Education, June ,■>,, 1839. 



BENEVOLENT STATE INTERVENTION 253 

The Committee of Council was compelled to continue the 
policy of government aid to education through voluntary or- 
ganizations, but it began to lay down very definite conditions 
under which such aid would be given. It prescribed conditions 
of administration and set up standards for housing and equip- 
ment. It organized a corps of state school inspectors, who 
were to see that the grants were earned. As years passed 
without any change in the deadlock between the supporters of 
a "voluntary" and those of a state system of education, the 
Committee decided to attempt a considerable extension of its 
operations through a new policy set forth in the Minutes 
of 1846. 

The Minutes of 1846. — The mechanical character of the 
instruction that was being given the children under the moni- 
torial system had long been recognized. As a possible im- 
provement on the monitorial plan, the Committee of Council 
proposed in 1846 to develop a supply of pupil teachers who 
would be apprenticed to the schoolmasters and be given special 
instruction over a long period by them. The Committee 
drew up an elaborate statement of the conditions of eligibility 
to become a pupil teacher and a detailed outline of the in- 
struction which the pupil teachers were to receive year by 
year. Each such pupil teacher was given a stipend which in- 
creased with length of service, and each master was paid a 
stated sum for each pupil teacher whom he instructed. A 
lower class of assistants, called stipendiary monitors, was also 
provided for at lesser rates of subsidy. Yet another means 
was adopted for improving the staffing of the schools. The 
teachers training colleges were awarded substantial grants 
for each pupil passing the examination of each year of the 
course. Exhibitions, or scholarships, were provided for all 
pupil teachers who should pass creditable entrance examina- 
tions for the training college and these were continued through- 
out the three-year course. The Committee further offered to 
add from fifteen to twenty pounds a year to the annual salaries 
of teachers in service who had attended the training colleges 
for one or more years. 



2 54 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

It is easily seen that the powers of the Committee of Coun- 
cil under the new Minutes had become greatly enlarged. From 
a mere committee for dispensing government grants it had 
changed into an agency that was standardizing educational 
performance wherever the government money went. It was 
maintaining a system of inspection out of the central office. It 
was stimulating the managers of schools to improve their 
teaching methods and their teaching staff. Naturally the new 
powers arrogated to itself by the Committee had to be sup- 
ported by increased government grants. In 1847 the educa- 
tion vote was raised to £100,000 and thereafter mounted 
steadily. By the year 1856 the work of the Committee of 
Council on Education had become so important that it was 
made into a Department and an act was passed providing for 
the appointment of a Minister of Education. 

Agitation for Aid to Education out of Local Taxation. 
— The years between 1846 and 1858 were marked both within 
Parliament and without by strong agitation for aid to popular 
education out of local taxes, which in England are called rates. 
The National Public School Association, founded in 1850, 
established branches all over the country and undertook an 
active campaign to mould public opinion in favor of schools 
supported out of the rates and open to all children free of 
charge. The activities of the friends of free, tax-supported 
secular schools were met by a storm of opposition on the part 
of those who were in favor of the voluntary system and did 
not wish any further extension of the powers of local or cen- 
tral authorities. A number of education bills were presented 
in rapid succession in Parliament following 1850, but none of 
them had sufficient backing to secure its passage. Meantime 
the sums voted annually by Parliament were becoming larger 
and larger. _ Beginning at £20,000 in 1833, the government 
subsidy had reached £30,000 in 1839, £100,000 in 1846, £260,- 1 
000 in 1854, £540,000 in 1857, and almost £800,000 in 1860J 
Without anyone ever having decided upon a system, a system 
was in operation and becoming more firmly fixed each year. 
Yet neither side to the education controversy was satisfied. 



BEXEVOLENT STATE INTERVENTION 255 

As a means of clearing the air and finding out how matters 
really stood the first of three great education commissions was 
appointed in 1858 under the chairmanship of the Duke of 
Newcastle "to inquire into the present state of popular educa- 
tion in England, and to consider what measures, if any, are 
required for the extension of sound and cheap elementary in- 
struction to all classes of the people." 

The Report of the Newcastle Commission 

In 1 861, after three years of careful and laborious inquiry, 
the Newcastle Commission presented its report. The major 
part of the Report dealt with "the education of the independent 
poor" as opposed to that of paupers, vagrants, and criminals. 
The children of the independent poor were to be found in 
infant schools, public and private, in day schools, public and 
private, in evening schools, and in Sunday Schools. A public 
school was one maintained by a religious or charitable organi- 
zation, as opposed to a school maintained by an individual for 
gain. The word public did not necessarily imply any connec- 
tion, financial or otherwise, with local or central government 
authorities. 

Infant Schools. — Of the infant schools the Report says: 
"Infant schools fall into two well-marked classes: the private, 
or dames' schools, and the public infant schools, which fre- 
quently form a department of an ordinary day school. Dames' 
schools are very common both in the country and in towns. 
They are frequently little more than nurseries, in which the 
nurse collects the children of many families into her own 
house insteacl of attending upon the children of some one 
family. The general character of these schools is the same in 
every part of the country. Women are always the teachers. 
They are generally advanced in life, and their school is usually 
their kitchen, sitting and bedroom, and the scene of all their 
domestic operations. . . . The dames' schools are apt to be 
close, crowded, and dirty. . . . Public infant schools present 
a different appearance. Great attention has been bestowed 



2S6 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

upon their organization. They not only aim at, but in fact 
accomplish a great deal more than the simple object of keep- 
ing children out of mischief. ... In the best infant schools, 
much is done and even much is taught. . . . There are evening 
schools in which the upper classes, consisting of children under 
seven, read a simple book, such as the New Testament, flu- 
ently and intelligently, write on a slate in a fair round hand, 
know many of the simple properties and relations of numbers, 
set down on a slate any number under 100,000 correctly from 
dictation, are acquainted with the main features of the earth's 
surface, and of English geography, have definite notions of 
all ordinary forms, and possess an appreciable amount of in- 
formation on natural history and objects of general utility." 
Public Day Schools. — The Report ' saw in the public day 
schools the most important part of the provision made for 
the education of children of the independent poor. These 
schools had been established and were maintained by persons 
who derived no personal advantage from them and were 
actuated in their foundation by charitable and religious mo- 
tives. Such schools were almost universally religious in char- 
acter and under the influence and care of ministers of relig- 
ion of various denominations. Though the public day schools 
had contributed more than any other cause to the diffusion 
of secular knowledge among the poor, this had seldom been 
the sole or even the leading object of those who were chiefly 
instrumental in founding and supporting them. Their leading 
object had been and then was the improvement of the poorer 
classes in a moral, and, above all, in a religious point of view. 
The general principle upon which almost everyone who for 
the last half century had endeavored to promote popular edu- 
cation had proceeded, had been that a large portion of the 
poorer classes of the population were in a condition injurious 
to their own interests and dangerous and discreditable to the 
rest of the community; that it was the duty and the interest 

' The writer has closely followed the language of the Report in the 
following digest. 



BENEVOLENT STATE INTERVENTION 257 

of the nation at large to raise them to a higher level, and that 
religious education was the most powerful instrument for the 
promotion of that object. The parents of children, on the 
other hand, had been interested mainly in the advantage of 
their children and had attached a higher importance than 
the managers and promoters of schools to the specific knowl- 
edge that would be profitable to the child in life. 

Private Day School Teachers. — The efficiency of the 
private day schools depended largely upon the teachers. They 
had rarely been in any way trained to their profession and they 
had almost always selected it either because they had failed 
in other pursuits or because., as in the case of widows, they 
had been unexpectedly left in a state of destitution. The 
worst conditions with respect to private schools were found in 
London where, one of the assistant commissioners said, none 
was too old, too poor, too ignorant, too feeble, too sickly, 
too unqualified in any or every way to regard himself and 
to be regarded by others as unfit for schoolkeeping. Among 
the class of private teachers were to be found domestic servants 
out of place, discharged barmaids, venders of toys or lollipops, 
keepers of small eatinghouses, of mangles, or small lodging- 
houses, needlewomen who took in plain sewing, milliners, con- 
sumptive patients in an advanced stage, cripples almost bed- 
ridden, persons of at least doubtful temperance, outdoor 
paupers, men and women of seventy and even eighty years of 
age, and persons who spelled badly, who could scarcely write, 
and who could not cipher at all. 

The evening schools were most frequently departments of 
regular day schools and were mainly used for supplying the 
deficiencies of early education. The work was confined almost 
entirely to elementary subjects, writing being the favorite. 
A large proportion of the students were young or mature men 
who found their business advancement hindered by the lack 
of elementary education. 

The Sunday Schools had by i860 become much less impor- 
tant than they had been at an earlier time as agencies for 



2s8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

secular instruction. Incidentally, reading continued to be 
taught in them and occasionally writing, but for the most part 
their primary object was religious instruction. 

The Financial Support of Education. — The government 
grants to the schools that received aid amounted to about a 
quarter of their total income. The fees of the children 
provided from about a quarter to as much as three-fifths of 
their income. The remainder was made up out of private con- 
tributions. In manufacturing sections the employers of labor 
were likely to contribute to the support of schools and not in- 
frequently they compelled the persons in their employment to 
contribute also by means of weekly stoppages from their wages. 
In the rural districts, the landowners were not generally inter- 
ested in the schools and their support fell almost entirely on 
the parochial clergy, who were ill able to afford it. Of the total 
number of public schools about twelve-thirteenths were sup- 
ported by religious denominations. Out of a total of 1,675,158 
pupils in public schools, 1,549,312 were in schools supported 
by religious denominations. Omitting certain classes as being 
outside the object of the government grants, there were in 
i860, 1,592,410 scholars in public schools for which grants 
were intended. Of this number 917,255 were in schools which 
actually received government grants while 675,155 were in 
schools which received no grants. The private schools in- 
structed 573,536 of the children of the independent poor, for 
whose education the government grants were intended. These, 
added to the scholars in unassisted public schools, made a total 
of 1,248,691 children to whose education the annual grants 
were expected to contribute and did not. In round numbers, 
the annual grants promoted the education of 920,000 chil- 
dren, while they left unaffected the education of 1,250,000 
others of the same class. 

Supply of Schools. — The Commission reported that most 
of the children who, being able to attend did not belong to 
any school, appeared to be the children of out-door paupers, 
or parents viciously inclined. With these exceptions, almost 
all the children in the country capable of going to school re- 



BENEVOLENT STATE INTERVENTION 259 

ceived some instruction. Wherever the assistant commissioners 
went, they found schools of some sort and failed to discover 
any considerable number of children who did not attend school 
for some time at some period of their lives. No doubt many of 
the schools were exceedingly bad, the Report acknowledged, and 
the attendance frequently so irregular as to be of little value. 

Teacher Training Colleges. — The Report showed that 
there had been established by i860 in England and Wales 
thirty-two training colleges, all of which except two were under 
government inspection and received government assistance. 
Practically all the teachers training colleges were connected 
with central religious societies. Their officers for the most part 
consisted of a principal, who was usually a minister of religion 
of the denomination with which the college was connected; 
a number of tutors, some of whom were lecturers in receipt 
of grants of 100 pounds a year from the government; and a 
number of certified assistants who were schoolmasters holding 
certificates of merit. Practising or model schools were usually 
attached to the institution with a "normal master" in charge, 
whose special business it was to give instruction to the stu- 
dents in the art of teaching. All of these training colleges had 
come into existence in 1839 or later, with one exception. The 
large part that the government grants played in their success 
was indicated by the fact that of 2,056 students in training 
colleges in 1858, 1,676 were Queen's scholars. The govern- 
ment grants constituted 53.3 per cent of the total income of 
these schools. 

Attendance. — The inquiry which the Commission made 
into school attendance revealed that about one-third of all 
the children who were on the rolls of the denominational 
schools attended less than 100 days. The children of the 
great bulk of the poorer classes were found to attend school 
for several years between the ages of three and twelve aad 
generally speaking between six and twelve. The Commission's 
reaction to this amount of school attendance was as follows: 
"This state of things leaves great room for improvement, but 
we do not think that it warrants very gloomy views or calls 



26o NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

for extreme measures. Even under the present conditions of 
school age and attendance, it would be possible for at least 
three-fifths of the children on the books of the schools . . . 
to learn to read and write without conscious difficulty, and 
to perform such arithmetical operations as occur in the ordi- 
nary business of life. This knowledge they might receive 
while under the influence of wholesome moral and religious dis- 
cipline and they might add to it an acquaintance with the 
leading principles of religion and the rules of conduct which 
flow from them." 

The Commission's Attitude respecting Compulsory 
Attendance. — The Commission found that almost all parents 
appreciated the importance of elementary education and that 
the "respectable" parents were anxious to obtain it for their 
children. They also stated that the parents were not willing 
to sacrifice the earnings of their children for this purpose and 
that they accordingly removed them from school as soon as 
they had an opportunity of earning wages of an amount which 
added in any considerable degree to the family income. In 
face of the unfavorable conditions of attendance the Com- 
mission felt that the difficulties and evils of any general measure 
of compulsion would outweigh any good results which could be 
expected from it under the present state of things. They 
added that neither the Government nor private persons could 
effectually resist, or would be morally justified in resisting, 
the natural demands of labor when the child had arrived, 
physically speaking, at the proper age for labor, and when its 
wages were such as to form a strong motive to its parents for 
withdrawing it from school. They recommended that public 
effort should be directed principally to increasing the regu- 
larity of attendance rather than to prolonging its duration. 
They believed that under the present circumstances of society, 
a satisfactory point would have been reached when the chil- 
dren of the independent poor went to the infant school at the 
age of three, and from the infant school to the day school at 
the age of six or seven, and remained in the day school till 
ten, eleven, or twelve, according to the circumstances of their 



BENEVOLENT STATE INTERVENTION 261 

parents and the calling to which they were destined. This 
amount of schooling would suffice, provided that the children 
attended at least four hours a day for five days a week for 
thirty weeks a year. Such a period of school attendance 
would enable them "to learn to read and write with tolerable 
ease and to cipher well enough for the purposes of their condi- 
tion in life," besides grounding them in the principles of 
religion. 

The Limitation of the Commission's Viewpoint, — The 
Report of the Newcastle Commission exhibits clearly the 
benevolent intentions of the English ruling classes with respect 
to the education of the children of the- poor, but it no less re- 
veals the limitations of their viewpoint. They accepted the 
existing class divisions of society as more or less permanent. 
The poor they should always have with them and the poor were 
to be accepted somewhat as a means of grace to those set in 
superior positions in life. The education proposed for the chil- 
dren of the poor was that of an inferior social class. The 
general attitude of the Commission was one of surprise and 
self-congratulation that so much had been done in the way 
of giving educational opportunities to the children of the 
poor. They hoped that there might be improvement along 
all lines, but certainly the situation was not one that "war- 
ranted very gloomy views or called for extreme measures." 

The Revised Code of 1861. — The weight of the recom- 
mendations of the Commission was rather in favor of chang- 
ing some of the details of the existing system of state grants 
in aid of voluntary effort, than of changing the system in prin- 
ciple. As a result of the Report, and largely as an embodiment 
of the recommendations contained therein, the Education De- 
partment drew up a new statement of the conditions that were 
to govern state grants. This is known as the Revised Code 
of 1861,^ and it inaugurated what was known as the system 
of "payment by results." Perhaps no other feature of Eng- 
lish government as it developed between 1835 and 1888 ex- 
hibits more clearly the new powers taken over by the cen- 
'Sec Education Department Report, 1S60-1S61 (England). 



2 62 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

tral authorities at the expense of local initiative and con- 
trol than does the system of payment by results in the 
schools. 

Payment by Results. — The Code stated that the object 
of the parliamentary grants was to promote the education of 
children belonging to the classes who supported themselves by 
manual labor. The money was to be distributed in aid of local 
voluntary exertion in the establishment or maintenance of 
schools and in the training of teachers. In defining the condi- 
tions under which grants would be made to aid in building 
new elementary schools, it was stated that such aid would be 
allowed only when the Committee of Council was satisfied 
that there was a sufficient population of the laboring class in 
the vicinity which required a school; that the religious de- 
nomination of the school would be suitable to the families to be 
relied upon for supplying pupils, and that the school would 
be likely to be maintained efficiently. The grants were to be 
limited very definitely in respect to the amount of voluntary 
contributions. The plans and specifications, site, title, and 
trust deed must be satisfactory to the Committee, whose con- 
trol was carried out even in respect to minute details. For 
the maintenance of schools, the sum of four shillings was to 
be paid for each scholar in average attendance throughout 
the year at the morning and afternoon meetings of their 
school, and two shillings sixpence for each scholar at the 
evening meetings. For every pupil who had attended more 
than 200 morning or afternoon sessions, eight shillings were 
to be paid, subject to examination, if he were more than six 
years of age, and six shillings sixpence if under six years. The 
children under six were not examined but their satisfactory 
condition must be reported by the inspector. In case the 
child over six years of age, for whom eight shillings was claimed, 
should fail in the examination in reading, writing, or arithmetic, 
one-third of that amount was deducted for each failure. In 
order to have a clear definition of what was to be expected 
of the children, the Education Department established a series 



BENEVOLENT STATE INTERVENTION 263 

of six standards in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Inspectors 
were empowered to withhold grants from the managers of 
schools on general grounds as well as for the failure of pupils 
in examinations. The old basis of aiding teachers with addi- 
tions to their salaries out of the grants was dropped, and there- 
after all grants paid in respect to the qualifications of teachers 
were paid directly to the managers of the schools in which they 
were employed. The teacher pension plan was likewise abro- 
gated. 

The effect of the new policies of the Revised Code was to 
discourage tendencies to expand the elementary curriculum, 
which had become not exceptional, and to limit the work of 
the school to a great deal of drill on the subjects for which 
grants were paid/ namely, reading, writing, and arithmetic. 
The study of geography, grammar, and history was discouraged. 
"The whole arrangement was ridiculously simple, and educa- 
tional administration was reduced to a question of arithmetic. 
The child became a money-earning unit to be driven; the 
teacher a sort of foreman whose business it was to keep his 
gang hard at work." - 

The system of payment by results on the basis of examina- 
tions given by Central Office inspectors was thoroughly bad. 
It resulted from the attempt of a central authority, which 
was without any coercive control, to supervise education 
through negative means. The English were not willing to 
accept out and out centralization of educational administra- 
tion. Such would have been contrary to their national habits 
and sense of values. But they did put up with a high degree 
of practical tyranny in the carrying out of the Revised Code. 
The principle of local autonomy required the erection of an 
adequate type of local education authority before it could have 
substance and secure efficient results. As we shall see, that was 
accomplished partly in 1870, still more fully in 1902, and 
conclusively in 19 18. 

^See Birchenough, ^2stor>' oj Elementary Education, pp. 275 and ff. 
"Ibid., p. 281. 



264 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 



Secondary Education 

Influence of Industrial Changes. — The industrial revolu- 
tion had sharpened the contrast between the conditions of 
employer and workman, but it had also introduced greater va- 
riety into social classification and had accelerated movement 
from one social rank to another. The great mass of workmen 
had not notably profited by the vast increase of wealth brought 
about by the new industrial conditions, but the middle class 
had experienced great increase in numbers and in wealth. The 
great capitalists of the new order advanced their pretensions 
to equal those of the old landed aristocracy. They were tak- 
ing their places beside the hereditary rulers of England in 
Parliament and in the municipal governments. The middle 
class in general had been admitted to political power by the 
Reform Act of 1832 and the Municipal Corporations Act of 
1835. The increase in the gross amount of commerce had 
multiplied the number of those who might aspire to the moder- 
ate respectability of clerical positions. The new industrial sys- 
tem had brought about gradations in the ranks of workmen 
and created the degrees of skilled mechanic, foreman, and works 
manager. As a result of these new conditions more persons 
were asking for education beyond the rudiments and" each 
social group had its own special educational demands. 

In the absence of any government activity in the provision 
of secondary schools, it was left to private initiative to supply 
the various forms of education desired. A new period of 
founding public schools began in the forties and saw the ad- 
dition of a number of important proprietary institutions that 
were intended to serve as rivals of the old public schools. 
Private schools, advertised to supply the educational needs of 
the lower middle classes at small cost, were set up by the 
score. Attendance at the older and better known schools rap- 
idly increased. But, even so, the conditions in respect to 
secondary education satisfied scarcely anyone. It was known 
that many of the old endowed grammar schools were out of 



BENE\'OLEXT STATE INTERVENTION 265 

touch with the wants of the communities they were supposed 
to serve. Much of the private school effort was suspected of 
superficiality and in spite of the new founding activity there 
was felt to be a deficiency in the supply of secondary schools. 
The general conviction that secondary education was a fitting 
subject for government investigation increased until it culmi- 
nated in the appointment of two great Parliamentary com- 
missions. 

In 1 86 1 a commission under the chairmanship of Lord 
Clarendon was appointed to inquire into "the nature and the 
application of the endowments, funds and revenues belonging 
to or received by" nine Great Public Schools, namely, the 
boarding schools of Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Charter- 
house, Harrow, Rugby, and Shrewsbury, and the day schools 
of St. Paul's and Merchant Taylors'. As a result of the in- 
vestigations of this commission, it was seen to be desirable 
that a much more extensive inquiry should be made into the 
secondary school situation. Accordingly, another commission, 
known as the Schools Inquiry Commission, under the chair- 
manship of Lord Taunton, was appointed in 1864 to inquire 
into the education given in all schools not comprised within 
the scope of the inquiry conducted by the Newcastle Commis- 
sion on elementary education or that of the Clarendon Public 
Schools Commission, and to "consider and report what meas- 
ures (if any) are required for the improvement of such edu- 
cation, having special regard to all endowments applicable or 
which can rightly be made applicable thereto." 

The Public Schools Inquiry Commission. — The Claren- 
don Commission dealt with a comparatively simple problem, 
namely the education of the sons of the ruling classes. As the 
schools which it investigated had long histories and had con- 
tinued with slight change or unchanged, practices which had 
been inaugurated two or three hundred years before, there 
was obvious need for administrative reform. The Commission 
suggested reorganization of the governing bodies of the schools 
and revision of their rules and regulations. It called for the 
broadening of the course of study to include mathematics, 



2 66 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

modern languages, history, and geography and natural science. 
It also insisted that the boys should be compelled to work 
harder at their lessons. "We have been unable to resist the 
conclusion," so runs the Report, "that these schools, in very 
different degrees, are too indulgent to idleness, or struggle 
ineffectually with it, and that they consequently send out a 
large proportion of men of idle habits and empty and unculti- 
vated minds." On the whole, however, the Report concluded 
strongly in favor of the existing system of secondary educa- 
tion. Its defects were minor and could easily be remedied. 
Its virtues were capital. The Commission, in concluding its 
general recommendations, gave the following estimate of the 
public schools, which is the attitude of the class whose sons 
attend them today: "Among the services which they have 
rendered is undoubtedly to be reckoned the maintenance of 
classical literature as the staple of English education, a service 
which far outweighs the error of having clung to these studies 
too exclusively. A second, and a greater still, is the creation 
of a system of government and discipline for boys, the ex- 
cellence of which has been universally recognized and which is 
admitted to have been most important in its effects on na- 
tional character and social life. It is not easy to estimate 
the degree in which the English people are indebted to these 
schools for the qualities on which they pique themselves most — 
for their capacity to govern others and control themselves, 
their aptitude for combining freedom with order, their public 
spirit, their vigor and manliness of character, their strong, 
but not slavish respect for public opinion, their love of healthy 
sports and exercise. These schools have been the chief nurs- 
eries of our statesmen; in them, and in schools modelled after 
them, men of all the various classes that make up English 
society, destined for every profession and every career, have 
been brought up on a footing of social equality and have 
contracted the most enduring friendships and some of the 
ruling habits of their lives. And they have had perhaps the 
largest share in moulding the character of an English 
gentleman." 



BENEVOLENT STATE INTERVENTION 267 

The Schools Inquiry Commission. — The task which the 
Taunton, or the Schools Inquiry, Commission faced was in- 
comparably more complex and extensive than that of the 
Clarendon Commission. It was to make recommendations 
concerning the supply of education of all varieties between 
the work of the elementary schools aided by national grants 
and that of the aristocratic public schools. It was within these 
limits that the new educational demands, introduced in the 
train of the industrial revolution, were operating. 

The Taunton Commission frankly recognized the existence 
of social classes and based its definitions of education upon 
the needs and desires of those classes. The highest grade of 
secondary education which it recognized was that intended 
for the sons of the wealthy and the professional classes. It 
was given in the public schools and a few of the more im- 
portant proprietary and endowed grammar schools, and was 
expected to continue to the age of eighteen. This was the 
grade of secondary education which was to serve as preparation 
for university study. 

The chief difficulty which the Commission found in respect 
to this grade of education was its expensiveness. The clas- 
sical education of the highest order was every day to a greater 
degree quitting the small grammar schools for the great public 
schools. Those who wanted such education could no longer 
find it, as they could in the preceding century, close to their 
doors, all over the country. ' They were forced to seek it in 
boarding schools and generally in boarding schools of a very 
expensive kind. 

The second grade of secondary education was that which 
was expected to end at the age of sixteen. It was the type 
which was then found to be serving the needs of the larger 
shopkeepers, the rising men of business, and larger tenant farm- 
ers. In this grade of school, Latin was probably desired by 
the parents, but not Greek, and they were especially desirous 
of a very thorough knowledge of important modern subjects. 
The boys attending these schools were preparing for the army, 
for the medical and legal professions, civil engineering, and like 



2 68 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

callings. In other cases, the reason for concluding the boy's 
education at sixteen was the necessity of his beginning to earn 
his living in whole or part. The mercantile and trading classes 
did not care to have their sons study the classics, as they 
were not going to the University. They wanted them to study 
mathematics, chemistry, and modem languages and the rudi- 
ments of physical science. 

The third and lowest grade of secondary education, which 
ended at about fourteen, belonged "to a class distinctly lower 
in the scale, but so numerous as to be quite as important 
as any; the smaller tenant farmers, the small tradesmen, the 
superior artisans." It could be described as a "clerk's educa- 
tion"; namely a thorough knowledge of arithmetic and the 
ability to write a good letter. It was intended to supply the 
basis of sound general education upon which alone technical 
instruction could rest. No other type of education was so 
important with respect to the industrial prosperity of the na- 
tion, and no other type was so completely lacking. 

One of the most striking recommendations of the Commis- 
sion was that Latin should be a part of the instruction given 
in all three grades of secondary school so that boys who might 
be compelled by force of circumstances to begin their educa- 
tion in the lowest grade might be able to offer Latin as the 
means of continuing their studies in higher schools in case the 
opportunity should arise. The Commission regarded it as 
highly essential that the door be kept open to bright poor 
boys to prepare for and enter the universities. It recom- 
mended that some of the weaker foundations be applied as 
exhibitions for poor boys in higher grades of secondary schools 
and in the universities. 

As to the existing supply of schools, the Commission reported 
that there was a sufficient number of public boarding schools 
of the highest class and a moderate number of public boarding 
schools of the second class. Of public day schools there were a 
great many, but they were in many cases in "languid condition, 
unwilling to relinquish classics, unable to give them full play, 
struggling feebly to accommodate themselves to the discordant 



BENEVOLENl STATE INTERVENTION 269 

aims of the several parts of the community." "In at least 
two-thirds of the places in England named as towns in the 
census" there was "no public school at all above the primary 
schools, and in the remaining third the school" was "often 
insufficient in size or in quahty." 

In the prevailing lack of public educational facilities, 
private initiative was active in establishing schools of all sorts. 
There were some good schools among these private schools, but 
many were inexpressibly bad. The worst feature of this situ- 
ation was that there was no way for parents to tell which 
schools were good and which bad, and in many instances they 
were spending their money to worse than no effect. 

The Commission recommended that some authority should 
be created with power to look into the endowed schools to 
see whether the endowments might not be redirected to better 
educational ends. In some cases the funds that were separately 
maintaining weak schools could be combined to maintain a 
single efficient school. Where, according to trust deed, schools 
in industrial sections were offering classical instruction where 
English and arithmetic were needed by the pupils who could 
or would attend them, the authority should be empowered to 
change the work of the school. In short, the authorities were 
to be given a pretty free hand in reorganizing endowments 
and applying them to meet modern educational demands. The 
Commission also recommended the creation of a central author- 
ity to be assisted by local authorities. The latter were to 
have a certain amount of jurisdiction in proposing schemes 
for the reform of endowed schools within their area and in ad- 
ministering them. There was also proposed a Central Council 
of Education charged with the duty of classifying and standard- 
izing secondary schools through examinations and inspection. 
The private and proprietary schools were to be offered the 
privilege of being registered and classified by the Council of 
Education. The Commission further recommended that towns 
and parishes should be given power to "rate," that is, tax, 
themselves for the establishment of new secondary schools. 

The action of Parliament in regard to these recommendations 



2 70 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

was limited to the passage of the Endowed Schools Act in 
1869 whereby a body called the Endowed Schools Commission 
was established with powers of making schemes for the better 
management and government of endowed schools. This action 
promised to put the old educational foundations to more effi- 
cient use, but it did not promise any adequate or even consid- 
erable increase of secondary schools. 

The Science and Art Department. — The new demands for 
scientific, mathematical, and technical subjects that were re- 
flected in the curricula of the two lower grades of secondary 
education, came about, as has been said, in response to the 
changes wrought by the industrial revolution. The period be- 
tween 1832 and 1867 saw also the beginnings in England of 
government aid to distinctively technical education. In 1836 
Parliament donated £1,500 for the establishment of a normal 
school of design in London under the direction of the Board of 
Trade. Five years later £10,000 were set aside for assistance 
to manufacturing localities in maintaining similar schools. The 
need for better technical education for English workmen was 
iemphasized by the exhibits of foreign goods at the International 
Exhibition held in London in 1851, and as a result there was 
established in 1852 a Department of Practical Art in the 
Government. The year following, the scope of the Department 
was broadened and a division of Science was added, the en- 
larged department now going under the name of the Depart- 
ment of Science and Art. When the Department of Education 
was created in 1856, the Science and Art Department was 
transferred to it from the Board of Trade, but continued to be 
independently administered. After 1853 aid was granted to in- 
dividual schools for the teaching of science as well as art sub-' 
jects, but it was only in 1859 that a general system, making 
grants applicable to the whole country, was inaugurated. A 
special minute passed in that year enabled any place to estab- 
lish science classes and to obtain state aid for instruction offered 
in geometry, mechanical drawing, physics, chemistry, and other 
subjects. Aid was given to individual schools on the basis 



BENEVOLENT STATE INTERVENTION 271 

of the number of pupils who passed the examinations set by 
the Department, as well as on the basis of other considera- 
tions. This was the first application in English education of 
the principle of payment by results. In 1862 Organized Science 
Schools were established with special Department aid. "By 
1872 there were 948 (such) schools with 36,783 pupils in 
2803 classes, the direct payments on results to which amounted 
to £25,201." ^ This type of government aid to technical edu- 
cation continued to be the measure of government participa- 
tion in that educational field until the passage of the Technical 
Education Act in 1889. 

'J'he Universities.— The old universities, Oxford and Cam- 
bridge, continued to enjoy the practical monopoly of higher 
education during the period under consideration. There was, 
however, an active spirit of reform present in them and they 
were beginning to seek ways and means of making themselves 
more widely serviceable and more truly national institutions. 
The early beginnings of the great university extension move- 
ment, although technically later, were made in the fifties with 
the inauguration of the Middle Class examinations, through 
which work done in technical schools, secondary schools of 
the lower grades, and mechanics' institutes might be given 
rank with respect to university studies. A Royal Commission 
was appointed in 1850 to inquire into the state, discipline, 
studies, and revenues of the university and colleges of Oxford. 
As a result of the recommendations of the Commission, many 
salutary reforms in government, studies and regulations were 
made, beginning in 1854. In that year the degree of bachelor 
of arts and the scholarships were thrown open to all candidates 
"irrespective of religion and two years later the degree of master 
of arts was also cleared of religious restriction. In 187 1 still 
further changes were made by law which threw open all uni- 
versity and college offices, with some slight exceptions, to all 
Her Majesty's subjects. Some beginnings of university exten- 

* Calendar, History, and General Summary of Regulations of the 
Department of Science and Art, i8g5. 



2 72 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

sion classes and lectures were made before 1867, but the great 
development of that democratic movement has occurred since 
that time. 

The University of London had been established as an exam- 
ining and degree-granting, but not a teaching, university in 
1836. Men who had pursued higher studies outside of the 
older institutions were thus enabled to enjoy the advantages 
of higher degrees. In i860, the University of London estab- 
lished the degrees of bachelor of science and doctor of science, 
whereby full recognition was given to the newer subjects. 

Before the close of the period under discussion higher tech- 
nical schools had been established in a number of the larger 
industrial cities, which, during the next generation, were to 
be incorporated as colleges connected with some of the pro- 
vincial universities then established. 

All along the line of higher, technical, and secondary educa- 
tion, the English universities and schools were beginning by 
1850 to lose their exclusive, narrow character and to prepare 
for the democratic renaissance which they experienced after 
the Reform Act of 1867. 

ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical Background. — Hayes, A Political and Social 
History of Modern Europe; Hazen, Europe Since 181 5; Lowell, The 
Government of England. 

Education Sources. — Report of the Select Committee of Parliament, 
1838; Report of the Newcastle Commission, 1861; the Revised Code of 
1861 in Education Department Reports, 1861-1862; Report of the Public 
Schools Commission, 1864; Report of the Schools Inquiry Commission, 
1867. 

Secondary Accounts. — Birchenough. History of Elementary Educa- 
tion in England; DeMontmorency, Progress of Education in England; 
Kay-Shuttleworth, Four Periods of English Education; Sandiford, The 
Training of Teachers in England and Wales. 



CHAPTER XIII 

POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AND THE ACHIEVE- 
MENT OF A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF 
EDUCATION (1867-1905) 

Further Political and Social Reform. — As has been said 

« 

in an earlier connection, the franchise reform of 1832 placed 
the political control of England in the hands of the middle 
class, while it left unrepresented five out of every six men in 
the nation. Several bills had been introduced during the fifties 
which provided for an extension of the franchise, but it was 
only in 1866 when Gladstone, the leader of the Liberal party 
in the House of Commons, introduced a bill having such a 
change in view, that any serious effort had been made by the 
party in power to secure representation for the laboring classes 
in the cities. While the new franchise bill was the cause of 
defeat for the Liberal ministry, the division was so close that 
Disraeli, the Conservative prime minister who came into 
office following the new election, introduced a bill extending 
the franchise and allowed it to be amended by his parliamen- 
tary opponents until it was more liberal than had been the 
bill introduced by Gladstone. The new Reform Act of 1867 
gave the vote in the borough to all householders and to all 
lodgers who had occupied for a year lodgings for which, un- 
furnished, they had paid a rental of ten pounds a year, and 
in the counties to all owners of property which was worth 
five pounds a year and all renters who paid a rental of at least 
twelve pounds a year. The passage of this Act has justly been 
regarded as the turning point in later English political history. 
While it gave the vote to only two and a half millions of voters 
out of a population of over thirty-one millions, it placed the 
power of affecting legislation in the hands of the working classes 

273 



2 74 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

of the cities and was the entering wedge of practically universal 
manhood suffrage as later achieved. While it was a long time 
before Labor was represented in Parliament by an influential 
Labor Group, the effects of the enlarged franchise were soon 
felt. Even when the Liberal Party went out of power, the 
Conservatives who succeeded to the Government continued 
the passage of acts that improved conditions for the working 
class. 

The Liberal Government under Gladstone's leadership, which 
was given a large majority in the first general election follow- 
ing the passage of the Reform Act of 1867, placed a conspicu- 
ous amount of advanced social legislation on the statute books. 
In 1 87 1 an Act of Parliament placed trade unions on a strictly 
legal basis for the first time, allowing them to hold property 
and accumulate funds. In 1872 the introduction of the Aus- 
tralian ballot and secret voting guaranteed to the voters of 
the country the unrestricted use of their newly-won political 
representation. The national army was made more democratic 
through the abolition of the purchase of commissions, and the 
civil service was thrown open to all when the lower division of 
offices was placed on the basis of competitive examination. 

The Conservative Government under the leadership of Dis- 
raeli enacted a comprehensive Factory and Workshop Act 
(1878), which consolidated and systematized the large mass 
of factory legislation which had been passed in the more than 
seventy years following the passage of Peel's Act of 1802. 
The Act also provided more effective enforcement of the fac- 
tory regulations. This great labor code laid down specific re- 
quirements, among other things, for the sanitation of buildings, 
the fencing of dangerous machinery, the limitation of hours of 
labor, not only for women and children, but for men also, the 
attendance of children at school, and the report of accidents. 
The minimum age at which children might be employed con- 
tinued, however, to be ten years. This minimum was raised 
to eleven years in 1891. 

The Elementary Education Act of 1870. — 'Of all the 
measures making for social reform which were passed shortly 



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION 275 

after the extension of the franchise, perhaps the most important 
and far-reaching was the decision of the Government to play a 
more influential part in popular education. The working 
classes had long favored better educational opportunities for 
their children, and when their membership was given parlia- 
mentary representation through the suffrage, it broke the dead- 
lock that had so long existed between the supporters of church 
and the supporters of civil administration of schools. The 
upper classes realized that it had become essential "to educate 
their masters." The Government in 1870 introduced a "Bill 
to provide for public elementary education in England and 
Wales." In rising to ask for leave to introduce this Bill, Mr. 
Forster, the Vice-President of the Council, said that in the 
preceding year, outside of the expenses of the central office of 
the Department of Education, of inspection, and of aid to nor- 
mal schools, the annual grant for primary schools was about 
£415,000. That sum was spent to aid about 11,000 day 
schools and 2000 evening schools, which had on their registers 
about 1,450,000 children. /But only two-fifths of the children 
of the working classes between the ages of six and ten years 
were on the registers of the government-aided schools and 
only one-third of those between the ages of ten and twelve. Of 
those between six and ten the government grants had helped 
about 700,000 and had left unhelped 1,000,000; while of those 
between ten and twelve they had helped 250,000 and left un- 
helped at least 500,000. This situation was the more serious 
when it was recognized that the schools that were not aided 
and inspected by the Education Department were, for the most 
part, extremely inefficient. In the large cities the failure of 
the method of maintaining schools that had been depended on 
was most complete. In Liverpool, for example, out of 80,000 
children that ought to receive an elementary education, 20,000 
attended no schools whatever and 20,000 attended schools in 
which the education they received was worthless. In ]\Ian- 
chester 16,000 out of 65,000 children went to no school at all, 
and conditions in Leeds and Birmingham were equally bad. 
Mr. Forster pointed out the results of the state-aided volun- 



2 76 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

tary system as follows: "(The results) are what we might 
have expected; much imperfect education and much abso- 
lute ignorance; good schools became bad schools for children 
who attend them for only two or three days in the week, or 
for only a few weeks in the year; and though we have done 
well in assisting the benevolent gentlemen who have estab- 
lished schools, yet the results of the State leaving the initia- 
tive to volunteers is that where State help has been most 
wanted State help has been least given, and that where it 
was desirable that State power should be most felt, it was 
not felt at all. In helping those only who help themselves, or 
who can get others to help them, we have left unhelped those 
who most need help. Therefore, notwithstanding the large 
sums of money we have voted, we find a vast number of chil- 
dren badly taught, or utterly untaught, because there are too 
few schools and too many bad schools, and because there are 
large numbers of parents in this country who cannot, or will 
not, send their children to school." The majority party's 
response to this condition of public elementary education is 
given in his continuing remarks: "Hence comes a demand 
from all parts of the country for a complete system of national 
education, and I think it would be as well for us at once to 
consider the extent of that demand. I believe that the country 
demands from us that we should at least try to do two things, 
and that it shall be no fault of ours if we do not succeed in 
doing them, — namely, cover the country with good schools 
and get the parents to send their children to those schools." ^ 
The School Boards.^ — The bill which Mr. Forster intro- 
duced for the Government proposed to make use of the agen- 
cies which had already accomplished much under state aid and 
guidance, while it also provided for the introduction of addi- 
tional and new machinery. The aid given by the state to vol- 
untary agencies was to be continued and the education societies 
were encouraged to maintain and even increase their activities. 
But in addition to their efforts, school districts were to be 

^Education Debate, 1870, as published by the National Education 
Union. 



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION 277 

established with school boards elected for the purpose of pro- 
viding and supervising elementary education wherever the 
existing supply was found to be inadequate. 

Compromise regarding Religious Instruction. — The 
traditional religious difficulty was encountered in the Govern- 
ment's effort to pass the Bill, and a compromise was effected 
whereby the Voluntary schools under the same management as 
before were aided by the state and allowed to give such relig- 
ious instruction as the managers desired, with the provisos 
(c) that no religious condition should be imposed on any 
child desiring admission to the school, and (b) that the time 
for such religious instruction should be at the beginning or 
the close of sessions so that parents who so desired could re- 
move their children from the school during this part of the 
school day without loss of the instruction in subjects other 
than religious. For the Board schools the famous Cowper- 
Temple clause provided that in such schools "no religious 
catechism or religious formulary which is distinctive of any 
particular denomination is to be taught." However, even in 
the Board schools, the bill allowed "Bible reading without note 
or comment." 

Mr. Forster's Bill became the Elementary Education Act 
of 1870. It is to be regarded as an important step in thei 
direction of a national system of education for England. It 
might be noted that this Act did not make elementary educa- 
tion free, although it gave school boards the power of remitting 
the fees of necessitous children (Article 17). Nor did the 
Act establish compulsory attendance, although, with the ap- 
proval of the Education Department, boards were empowered 
to make by-laws requiring parents to send their children to 
school within the age limits of five and thirteen years (Ar- 
ticle 74). 

The Elementary Education Act of 1870 created a new set 
of ad hoc authorities. The districts for the purposes of edu- 
cational administration were to be designated by the Education 
Department, and the division of territory for this specific 
civil function was* made without respect to the areas already 



2 78 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

organized under local authorities for other purposes of govern- 
ment. The school boards were to be elected in the boroughs 
by the persons whose names were on the roll of electors and in 
the parishes by the rate-payers. In order to safeguard the 
wishes of minorities and almost to guarantee them some repre- 
sentation on the school boards, every elector was entitled to 
a number of votes equal to the number of members to be 
elected and could give all his votes to one candidate or dis- 
tribute them among the candidates as he saw fit. The mem- 
bership of the school boards might range from five to fifteen. 
It may be said that the creation of the school boards represents 
the culmination of the tendency to establish new local areas 
and separate local authorities for every conceivable kind of 
social function (see p. 248). 

The Act of 1870 provided for the creation of school dis- 
tricts under school boards only where a deficiency of elementary 
school places was found to exist. The Voluntary societies were 
given a period of six months to endeavor to supply any such 
deficiency pointed out by the Education Department, and it 
was only after it had been shown that a sufficient supply of 
schools would not be forthcoming as a result of Voluntary ef- 
fort that the school districts were to be created. In 1872 Vol- 
untary effort provided over a thousand new schools. "By 
1876 the number of school places in England and Wales was 
found practically to have doubled in seven years, and of the 
increased accommodation two-thirds had been provided by 
Voluntary schools." ^ During the next five years, the accom- 
modation was further increased by a half. 

Compulsory Attendance Achieved. — The deficiency of 
the Act of 1870 in failing to make attendance compulsory was 
partly remedied by the Elementary Education Act of 1876, 
in which occurs the statement that "it shall be the duty of 
the parent of every child to cause such child to receive effi- 
cient elementary instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic." 
That Act also provided that no child should be employed 
under the age of ten years unless he had passed Standard IV 

^ Birchenough, History of Elementary Education, pp. 140-1 



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION 279 

as the work of that grade was outlined by the Education De- 
partment, or had made 2 50 attendances for each of five years. 
For the carrying out of the Act the school boards were desig- 
nated where there were such. Where there were no school 
boards, the Act provided for the creation of school attend- 
ance committees, which were to be appointed in boroughs by 
the borough councils and in the parishes by the guardians of 
the Poor Law Union comprising the parish. The Elementary 
Education Act of 1880, commonly referred to as Mundella's 
Act, made compulsory attendance nation-wide by requiring 
local*education authorities to frame by-laws which would com- 
pel the attendance of children at school. In default of action 
by the local authorities, the Education Department was em- 
powered to make compulsory attendance by-laws which would 
have effect in such delinquent locality. Mundella's Act also 
made it necessary for children between the ages of ten and 
thirteen to secure a certificate of having passed a certain 
standard in the schools before they should be eligible for half- 
time employment. The standard of school proficiency re- 
quired was left to the local authorities. 

I The Act of 1876 extended somewhat the principle of free 
elementary education. It provided that any parent, not a 
pauper, who was unable to pay the ordinary school fees for 
any child at a public elementary school, could apply to the 
guardians of the poor for his district, and that the guardians 
should pay the school fees. Such assistance, the Act stated, 
was not to be regarded as making of such parent a pauper, 
as did the acceptance of aid under the Poor Law. As a mat- 
ter of practice, however, a certain stigma was felt to be at- 
tached to such application for payment of school fees, and 
many parents for whom such payment was a hardship, refused 
to take advantage of the Act. 

The Third Reform Act and the Reorganization of 
Local Government. — In 1884 a third franchise Reform Act 
was carried by Mr. Gladstone's Liberal Government. By this 
Act the privilege of voting for members of Parliament, which 
had been given to the greater part of the laboring population 



28o NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

in the cities by the Act of 1867, was extended to the laboring 
class in country villages and on the farms, and through it 
England achieved practically universal manhood suffrage. 

The Municipal Corporations Act of 1882 consolidated the 
many Acts respecting the powers and the administration of 
boroughs that had been passed following the Act of 1835. 
The year 1888 saw a fundamental reorganization of county 
government. The tendency to create separate local authori- 
ties for specific purposes which should be in close relationship 
with the central government had gone on unchecked until 
1872. This system had served so long as it was desired only to 
apply special requirements to certain specific districts at a 
time when the universal application of those requirements was 
felt to be unnecessary. The creation of school boards by the 
Act of 1870 is a case in point. In 1872 it came to be recog- 
nized as necessary to apply certain standards of sanitation to 
the entire country, and not only to congested city areas. For 
the administration of the sanitation law no new local authori- 
ties were created, but existing local authorities were made 
to take on additional functions. There was even then, how- 
ever, a bewildering maze of local authorities. "The country 
was now divided into counties, unions, and parishes, and 
spotted over with boroughs, and with highway, sanitary, 
Improvement Act, school, and other districts. Except for 
parishes and unions, none of the areas bore any neces- 
sary relation to any of the rest, and each of them was under 
an authority of its own, often wholly independent of all other 
organs of local government and sometimes selected on a plan 
quite peculiar to itself." ^ The ever-increasing intricacy of 
civil administration cast greater and greater burdens upon the 
central authorities, and it began to be seen that the improve- 
ment of local government would depend upon the creation of 
a system of responsible local authorities that would stand 
midway in the system of administration between the smallest 
units and the national government. The Local Government 
(County Councils) Act of 1888 did away with the ancient form 

^Lowell, The Government of England, Vol. II, p. 35. 



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION 281 

of county government (see p. 225). The justices of the peace, 
appointed by the Crown, were discontinued as the governing 
board of the counties and elective councils were set up in their 
place. The duties of the justices of the peace and substantial 
new powers were transferred to the county councils. Accord- 
ing to the terms of this Act all boroughs having a population 
of 50,000 were called county-boroughs and were separated 
from the rest of the county for administrative purposes. The 
form of government which was created for the counties was 
also applied to all county boroughs. 

The reorganization of local government as concerned the 
maze of smaller authorities was completed by the Act of 1894. 
By the changes introduced in this Act, the boundaries of 
counties, districts, and parishes were reorganized; the smaller 
divisions were made true subdivisions of the county govern- 
ment; and the powers of the county councils with reference 
to the subordinate local authorities were clearly defined. 
Almost immediately after the creation of the county councils, 
the passage of the Technical Instruction Act (1889) gave 
them power to lay a small tax for the support of technical 
and manual education within their respective counties and the 
passage of the Local Taxation Act of 1890 placed at the dis- 
posal of the county councils large annual sums arising out of 
the customs and excise duties. The reorganization of the local 
administration of education was not accomplished, however, 
until the passage of the Education Act of 1902. 

The Report of the Cross Commission. — By 1886 it 
seemed to be desirable that the operation of the great edu- 
cational experiment which had begun with the passage of 
the Elementary Education Act of 1870 should be inquired 
into. For this purpose the Cross Commission on the working 
of the Elementary Education Acts was appointed. Its volumi- 
nous Report, issued in 1888, showed that the measures of the 
past eighteen years had covered the country with elementary 
schools and had brought into them, with commendable regu- 
larity of attendance, almost all the children who were legally 
compelled to be there. The schools under government inspec- 



282 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

tion had increased from five thousand to almost twenty thou- 
sand, while the number of school places had increased from 
something over a million to something over five millions. The 
school boards in sixteen years had provided more new school 
places than had the Voluntary associations, but there still 
were two places in Voluntary schools to one in board schools. 

The Cross Commission on "Payment by Results." — 
The report of the Cross Commission was largely devoted to 
questions of the quality of school work done and most of its 
recommendations dealt with matters of internal school econ- 
omy. As the present work is largely limited to the considera- 
tion of problems of educational administration, only a few of 
these recommendations will be mentioned here. The system 
of payment by results as the basis of government inspection 
was carefully considered, and while the Commission were 
"unanimously of opinion" that the system was being carried 
too far and was being too rigidly applied and that it ought 
to be modified and relaxed in the interests equally of the 
scholars, of the teachers, and of education itself, they believed 
that it had to be continued. They thought that the distribu- 
tion of Parliamentary grants could not be wholly freed from 
its dependence on the results of examination without the risk 
of incurring graver evils than those which it was sought to 
cure. Parliament required some guarantee that the quality 
of the education given justified the expenditure. 

The reason why the system of payment by results was con- 
tinued so long after the best educational thought had recog-. 
nized its weaknesses is to be found in the inadequate system 
of local school administration under which England so long 
suffered. There were occasional school boards who were able 
to employ clerks having professional fitness. Under such con- 
ditions a system of true local supervision could be developed. 
In general, however, the atomic division of responsibility and 
powers among school boards and the boards of managers of 
Voluntary schools, made it impossible to secure the expert 
supervision and management that are essential to a high quality 



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION 283 

of school work. Without expert local school administration 
the central authority was long unwilling to give up the control 
which it exercised through the system of state examination 
and payment by results. 

The moderate recommendations of the Cross Commission in 
respect to the relaxation of "payment by results" were almost 
immediately taken up by the Board of Education. The cast- 
iron system of standards, with the accompanying narrowness 
of curriculum and cram methods of instruction, were modified 
in new Department regulations, and in 1890 a new Code was 
adopted which abolished the system altogether. "The Code 
was based, as far as the actual teaching of the children was 
concerned, on two main principles. The first was to substitute 
for the bald teaching of facts, and the cramming which was 
then necessary in order that children might pass the annual 
examination and earn the grant, the development of interest 
and intelligence and the acquirement of real substantial 
knowledge. Then the aim was to educate the children in such 
a manner that, instead of becoming temporary repositories of 
useless so-called knowledge, which was immediately forgotten, 
they might, at the end of their school lives, take away with 
them . . . training and character which would tend to make 
them good citizens in after years." ^ 

Existing Divided System Approved. — The Commission 
was satisfied that the divided system of schools, part of which 
were maintained by local authorities and part by Voluntary 
associations, and all of which were aided by national grants, 
should be continued. They agreed that Voluntary associations 
should be given the opportunity to supply school deficiencies 
where such were discovered to exist just as they had been 
according to the terms of the Act of 1870. Furthermore, 
they saw no reason why the Voluntary schools should not 
receive support out of the local taxes just as the board schools 
did. 

Secondary Instruction in Elementary Schools. — Another 

^ Kekewich, The Education Department and After, p. 53. 



284 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

important recommendation of the Cross Commission dealt with 
the tendency of elementary schools to offer instruction in 
secondary school subjects. However desirable higher elemen- 
tary schools might be, the principle involved in their addition 
to the system should, if approved, be avowedly adopted. 
Their indirect inclusion in the existing system was thought 
to be injurious to both primary and secondary instruction, 
the distinction between which deserved close legal defini- 
tion.^ 

The Elementary Schools Made Free. — The Cross Com- 
mission had declared in favor of having parents who could 
afford it continue to contribute a substantial proportion of the 
cost of the education of their children in the form of school 
fees. The tendency toward gratuity of elementary schooling, 
which had been exhibited in earlier partial measures, was 
gaining strength, however, -and in 1891 an Act was passed 
which provided that free education in the government-aided 
schools could be demanded by parents for their children. The 
parliamentary grants were at the same time increased to meet 
the reduction of school revenues incurred through the loss of 
the school pence. As a result of this Act, the great majority of 
the public elementary schools became free and in those schools 
which retained the payment of fees, the fees were greatly re- 
duced. 

Extensions of Elementary Education. — An Act passed 
in 1893 made provision for the elementary education of blind 
and deaf children in suitable institutions. A similar Act passed 
in 1899 made it a duty of local education authorities to make 
proper arrangements for the education of defective and epi- 
leptic children. In 1893 the age for partial or total exemption 
of children from school attendance was raised to eleven years, 
and in 1899 to twelve. An Act passed in 1898 provided a 
system of retirement annuities and disability allowances for 
elementary school teachers. The pension funds were made 
up partly out of stoppages from teachers' salaries and partly 
from state contributions. 

^ For further discussion of this topic see pp. 287 ff. 



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION 285 



Secondary Education as Affected by New Social and 
Economic Conditions 

The twenty-five years which followed the Report of the 
Taunton Commission on secondary education (1867) were, asi 
has been seen, tremendous years in respect to the growth of I 
English democracy. The old narrow aristocratic control of 
public affairs had given way to a suffrage so liberal as to in- 
clude practically every adult male. What is more, England 
was not only becoming a political democracy, but she was 
rapidly becoming a democracy in a social sense. To be sure, 
as compared with the almost absolute social equality which 
has been characteristic of American conditions, the opportuni- 
ties of the individual to improve his position were limited, 
movement from lower to higher class was relatively infre- 
quent, and upper and middle class dominance continued. 
But as compared with conditions in the early years of the 
reign of Victoria, social movement had become greatly accel- 
erated. The industrial and commercial life of the times was 
inviting the individual to improve his position by preparing 
for more important and better-paid service in the ever-expand- 
ing economic organization. And society was responding to the 
changed situation by endeavoring to supply the educational 
opportunities that at once served the aspirations of the indi- 
vidual and the needs of business. 

Inadequate Provision of Secondary Schools, — We have 
already considered the small results in terms of legislation that 
followed upon the recommendations of the Taunton Commis- 
sion. They may be summed up for practical purposes by say- 
ing that they were limited to the creation of an Endowed 
Schools Commission, which was given power to make "schemes" 
for the better management and government of the endowed 
grammar schools. In 1874 this Commission was merged into 
the Board of Charity Commissioners. By 1895, this Board 
had framed schemes for the reorganization of 902 endowments. 
Faults of management had been corrected and the educational 



286 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

work and character of the schools affected had been improved. 
The work of the Board of Charity Commissioners was, how- 
ever, mainly remedial, and, while the redirection of badly 
used endowments increased the actual supply of secondary 
school facilities, that body was in no position to meet ade- 
quately the pressing demands of contemporary England for 
more secondary schools. 

Work of the Science and Art Department. — Meanwhile 
a considerable number of agencies were actively engaged in 
efforts to increase the supply of educational opportunities be- 
yond the elementary schools. One of the most important of 
these, the Science and Art Department, was mentioned in the 
account of the preceding period of English education. Its 
activities had not only been continued, but vastly increased. 
It gave aid in the establishment and maintenance of science 
and art schools and classes, day and evening. It did not 
actually maintain any schools, but operated through local 
agencies and aided their efforts. Such agencies might include 
local committees approved by the Department, county coun- 
cils, school boards, or the governing body of an endowed 
school. Subsidies were paid to local authorities for the main- 
tenance of science and art schools and classes and scholarship 
grants were made to pupils. Up to 1894, the payments of the 
Science and Art Department were strictly on the basis of re- 
sults as shown by the success of pupils in passing examinations. 
Any approved local body might establish an "Organized Sci- 
ence School," in which instruction in science should be car- 
ried on methodically for three years, according to a course pre- 
scribed by the Department and provided fifteen hours a 
week ^ should be allotted to subjects recognized by the Depart- 
ment. By regulations introduced in 1894, the organized sci- 
ence schools were largely freed from the system of payment 
by results and greater liberality was shown by the Depart- 
ment in respect to the inclusion of non-technical subjects. 
Even music, political economy, and the science and art of 
teaching were defined as technical subjects in order to bring 

* After 1894, it was thirteen. 



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION 287 

them within the scope of the grants. Classes in science and 
art that were being subsidized by the Department were to be 
found in higher elementary schools, endowed grammar schools, 
mechanics institutes, and still other types of school. 

Expansion of the Elementary Curriculum into the Field 
of Secondary Education. — The Education Department was 
gaining year by year more important connections with secon- 
dary education of the third, or lowest, grade as defined by the '/ 
Taunton Commission. The Elementary Education Act of 
1870 had defined an elementary school as one at which elemen- 
tary education was the "principal part" of the instruction 
given, and in the case of evening schools not even the prin- 
cipal part of the instruction had to be elementary in order 
that the school might participate in the grants. The tendency 
was for evening schools to give mainly secondary school in- 
struction, and the day schools were expanding their curriculum 
into the secondary field. The secondary instruction offered in 
the day schools was mainly given in what were called "higher 
grade elementary schools." The school boards, with their 
superior resources, first began this process of extending the 
work of the elementary schools, and to meet the new situation 
the Education Department created a new standard, the 
Seventh. But this additional standard was not enough to 
meet the situation. Some school boards instituted "ex- 
standard classes," which went beyond the range of instruction 
outlined by the Education Department, while others organized 
a new type of school, called the higher grade elementary school, 
in which instruction was offered in such subjects as history, 
grammar, French, mathematics, and science. The same ten- 
dency to create "ex-standard" classes and higher grade ele- 
mentary schools was seen on the part of Boards of Managers 
of Voluntary schools, especially after the passage of the Free 
Elementary Education Act of 1891, which released for other 
purposes the funds that had gone to the payment of children's 
school fees. This whole tendency of the public elementary 
schools to undertake instruction beyond the Standards of the 
Education Department constituted an important source of 



288 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

supply of the third grade of secondary instruction. In 1894 
there were 69 higher grade elementary schools, of which 39 
were Organized Science Schools. 

The County Councils in Education. — The Acts of 1889 
and 1890, which drew the county and county-borough councils 
into the administration of secondary education, have already 
been referred to. By the Act of 1889, such councils were per- 
mitted to levy a tax not to exceed one penny in the pound for 
the support of technical and manual education. Few councils 
took advantage of the privilege granted by the Act and small 
progress in technical education resulted from it. The Act of 
1890, however, had great significance. It gave to the county 
and county-borough councils the residue of the excise and 
customs taxes on beer and spirits, all or part of which might 
be applied to technical education. The sum handed over to 
the councils according to this Act was, for the four years fol- 
lowing its passage, over 1,680,000 pounds, practically all of 
which was spent on technical education. The councils aided 
technical institutes, special industrial classes, and other strictly 
technical forms of education, but they also paid out large sums 
to secondary schools as educational units, and gave liberally 
to establish scholarships in secondary schools, to support eve- 
ning continuation classes, and to assist the training of elemen- 
tary school teachers for evening schools. 

University Extension. — Perhaps there is nothing that bet- 
ter indicates the educational change which had taken place in 
England by 1890 than the development of facilities for higher 
education. The old universities had inaugurated after 1873 
definite plans for university extension in the form of local 
lectures in various towns throughout the country, to be fol- 
lowed by examinations for credit. This work had been taken 
up by the provincial universities and university colleges and 
by the University of London. In 1893-4, more than 60,000 
persons attended university extension courses in different parts 
of the country.^ 
■^See Report Secondary Education Commission, 1895. 



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION 289 

Through the cooperation of the universities and local repre- 
sentatives or authorities, systematic and sometimes ambitious 
courses of higher instruction were thus conducted. In gen- 
eral, however, the university extension movement contributed 
mainly to the supply of higher secondary education for the 
middle classes. 

The universities were also doing an important service in 
standardizing the work of secondary schools through the ex- 
aminations which they conducted throughout the country. The 
older universities held local examinations for boys and girls. 
Three grades were recognized, with pass and honor certificates. 
The requirements of the highest grade represented practically 
the work of a second grade secondary school. Under certain 
conditions, passing the University Board examinations ex- 
empted the student from the examinations otherwise conducted 
by the General Medical Council, the Institute of Civil Engi- 
neers, and other technical or professional institutions. A 
larger number of schools set the standard for their work in 
accepting the matriculation examination of the University of 
London as their leaving, or graduation, examination. 

University Colleges and Provincial Universities. — While 
university colleges and provincial universities are not, strictly 
speaking, a part of secondary education, for a long time they 
gave considerable secondary instruction and their connection 
with secondary education was so close that they may be 
briefly mentioned here. The origin and activities of the Uni- 
versity of London have been mentioned in an earlier connec- 
tion, and they represent the first defection from the monopoly 
of the old universities. In 1868, there were only three uni- 
versity colleges in England. In 1891 their number had in- 
creased to eleven. They originated in the great industrial 
centers, such as Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Manches- 
ter, largely as the result of private benevolence. A university 
college is a teaching institution of university grade, but the 
college is unable to grant degrees. To give the degree granting 
power as the final stage of higher education in Owens College, 
Victoria University was founded in 1880 with its seat at 



290 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

Manchester. At the time of its incorporation, Owens College, 
Manchester, was the only college connected with the Univer- 
sity, but University College, Liverpool, was admitted in 1884 
and Yorkshire College, Leeds, in 1887. The University of 
London, with a large number of affiliated colleges and profes- 
sional schools, was organized as a teaching university in 1898. 
The rapid development of these local institutions of higher 
education in a sense popularized university studies in making 
them available for large numbers at small expense. 

Day Training Colleges in the University Colleges. — 
The University Colleges were given a close connection with 
secondary, and even elementary, education, when in 1890 
day training colleges for teachers were established in them by 
the Education Department. In 1894-5 there were twelve 
day training colleges in connection with universities and uni- 
versity colleges. This innovation linked up the training of 
elementary teachers with the institutions of higher education, 
and was symptomatic, equally with the interrelationships of 
secondary schools, of the growing democracy of English edu- 
cation. It afforded a sharp contrast with the conditions con- 
trolling primary teacher training in France and Prussia at 
the same period. In those countries there was a definite divi- 
sion between primary and secondary education, while in Eng- 
land the two grades were tending to run together. The ab- 
sence of any clear definition in England of what constituted 
a secondary school, or of the various grades of secondary 
school, was paralleled by the absence of any standard for the 
preparation of secondary school teachers. The teachers of 
the higher grade secondary schools were practically all gradu- 
ates of the old universities, who had had their secondary 
school preparation in a great public school. At the other end 
of the scale, it was natural for the efficient teachers in elemen- 
tary schools to be promoted to positions in the higher grade 
elementary schools, which were, in effect, the lowest grade of 
secondary education. For the secondary schools in between 
these grades the condition with respect to teachers was ex- 
tremely uncertain, and it was generally recognized that some 



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION 291 

competent authority, in addition to the voluntary agencies 
that had arisen to serve that purpose, was called for to under- 
take the classification and registration of secondary teachers. 

The Report of the Bryce Commission on Secondary 
Education. — In 1894, a Royal Commission on Secondary Edu- 
cation, Mr. James (later Lord) Bryce, Chairman, was ap- 
pointed "to consider what (were) the best methods of estab- 
lishing a well-organized system of secondary education in 
England, taking into account existing deficiencies, and having 
regard to such local sources of revenue from endowment or 
otherwise as (were) available or (might) be made available 
for this purpose, and to make recommendations accordingly." 
The Commission presented its Report in 1895. The descrip- 
tion of the state of secondary education as given in the pre- 
ceding pages is mainly taken from the facts presented by the 
Bryce Commission. Its estimate of the situation and its rec- 
ommendations remain to be considered. 

Of the first grade schools, namely, those preparing pupils for 
Oxford and Cambridge, there was held at the time to be a suffi- 
cient supply, at least for boys. It was in the second grade 
which carried the education of boys and girls up to about six- 
teen, and in the third grade, which carried it up to about four- 
teen, that the greatest deficiency was found to exist. The 
higher grade elementary schools were doing much to supply 
third grade secondary education, but in many places, espe- 
cially in rural districts, the supply was far from adequate. 
The greatest need for schools of the second grade was in the 
towns, especially the smaller ones. 

The Bryce Commission made no recommendation that secon- 
dary education should be made free; and that is hardly to be 
wondered at considering that elementary education had been 
made so only four years previously. It did, however, recom- 
mend a substantial increase in the number of scholarships in 
secondary schools whereby boys and girls of promise in the 
elementary and higher grade elementary schools might be 
given the opportunity of attending higher grade secondary 
schools. The example of Bradford Grammar School was 



292 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

pointed out for emulation, where numerous scholarships were 
offered to pupils in elementary schools, while at the same time 
the successful pupils of the Grammar School were eligible to 
numerous scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge. Such an 
open pathway for merit exhibited in poor children was de- 
scribed as the ideal toward which English education should 
develop. 

Lack of Coordination among Secondary Education 
Authorities. — The Commission pointed out as an obvious and 
grave defect of the existing condition the lack of coordination 
among the various authorities for secondary education. The 
Board of Charity Commissioners, the Department of Science 
and Art and the Education Department were central authori- 
ties with strictly limited provinces and among them there was 
no organic connection. They might cooperate to a certain 
extent, but they were ultimately independent of one another. 
"A grammar school may be worked under a scheme framed 
and administered by the Charity Commissioners; it may be 
earning grants, or may also include an organized science 
school, subject to the regulations laid down by the Department 
of Science and Art; and it may be receiving scholars from ele- 
mentary schools, whose earlier training has followed lines pre- 
scribed by the Education Department." ^ 

Matters were no better with respect to the local authorities. 
The county and county borough councils could aid secondary 
education only under the terms of the Technical Education 
Act of 1889 and the Local Taxation Act of 1890 (see p. 281). 
The school boards, boards of managers of Voluntary schools, 
committees of proprietary schools, governing bodies of endowed 
schools, and other agencies besides, were contributing to the 
local supply of secondary education, each without any connec- 
tion with the other and without any dependence upon a central 
authority with power to coordinate their activities. 

The problem as the Commission saw it was how to provide 
a single central authority which should supervise the interests 
of secondary education in England as a whole; how to provide 
^Report Secondary School Commission, i8q5. 



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION 293 

local authorities, representative in the most complete sense, 
which should in their respective areas regard those interests 
with a similarly comprehensive view; and, reserving a large 
freedom of action for such local authorities, to reconcile the 
ultimate unity of central control with a system sufficiently 
elastic to meet the almost infinite variety of local require- 
ments.^ 

The more specific recommendations of the Commission called 
for the creation of a comprehensive central authority for all 
grades of education in the national government and for the 
erection in all counties and county boroughs of local authori- 
ties appointed for the most part by the councils. 

The Board of Education Created. — In i8qq, t he first step 
was taken in the direction of introducing a larger degree of 
order into the chaotic educational situation, which was also 
the first response to the recommendations of the Bryce Com- 
mission. By the Board of Education Act of that year all the 
educational authorities of the government were concentrated 
in a single board. The Department of Education, including the 
Science and Art Department, was merged in the Board of 
Education and provision was made for transfer to the Board 
of Education by executive order of educational functions exer- 
cised by the Charity Commissioners or the Board of Agricul- 
ture. At the same time the powers of the Board of Education 
were made wider than those of the superseded Department of 
Education by its being given the power of inspecting any 
secondary schools "which desired to be inspected." A Con- 
sultative Committee of the Board of Education was also pro- 
vided by the Act which should consist of an indefinite number 
of persons, "at least two-thirds of whom were to be persons 
qualified to represent the views of Universities and other bodies 
interested in education." The main duty of the Consultative 
Committee was to advise the Board of Education on any mat- 
ter referred to it. As the real work of the Education Depart- 
ment had always been carried on by a permanent secretary 
assisted by a permanent staff, the new administrative arrange- 
" Secondary Education Commission Report, I, 65. 



294 NATIONALISM 'AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

ment did not bring about any considerable change. It was 
mainly important in the fact that it created a single govern- 
ment agency that was to have cognizance, not only of elemen- 
tary education, or of the grants for the teaching of science and 
art classes, but for secondary education as well. To be sure, 
the newly-created Board had little to do with secondary edu- 
cation for some years after its creation, but it was at least 
a body to which such functions might be added. 

Special Aid for the Voluntary Schools. — Meanwhile 
pressing problems in connection with the Voluntary schools 
kept coming up with greater and greater insistence. The 
voluntary schools were finding it impossible to keep up with 
the board schools, as the latter were able to draw upon the 
ever-increasing resources of local taxation. The effect of local 
taxation was also to reduce somewhat the willingness of pri- 
vate individuals to give money for the support of schools. 
They were paying rates for the support of one kind of ele- 
mentary schools. Why should these rates not be applied 
equally to the support of the Voluntary schools, which were 
performing identically the same social function as the board 
schools? The Church party, which was almost identical* with 
the Conservative party, began to agitate for an equal share in 
the funds raised by local taxation, which was exactly the solu- 
tion arrived at in the Education Act of 1902. But before the 
Government had decided to adopt a policy of assisting volun- 
tary schools out of the rates, Parliament had passed a tempo- 
rary measure in 1897 which gave the Voluntary schools extra 
grants out of the state treasury not to exceed in the aggre- 
gate five shillings for every scholar on the rolls. The same 
Act exempted the school property of Voluntary Associations 
from being taxed by local authorities. 

The Cockerton Judgment. — In 1901 a legal decision was 
handed down by the Court of Appeals that made inevitable 
some early action by the Government in respect to secondary 
education. We have already discussed some few pages back 
the tendency of school boards and the managers of Voluntary 
schools to expand the curriculum into "ex-standard" classes, 



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION 295 

and also to create special schools called higher grade elemen- 
tary schools which were in effect the lowest grade of secondary 
education. Mr. Cockerton, an auditor of the Local Govern- 
ment Board, disallowed expenditures made by the London 
School Board in providing day and evening science and art 
classes. He took the ground that the expenditures which had 
been disallowed had not been devoted to elementary education 
and hence the funds raised by local taxation could not be ap- 
plied to pay them. When the Board contested the decision of 
the auditor the matter was carried to the Court of Appeals, and 
the judges in the case decided that the authority of school 
boards was limited to providing education for children and 
that applying board money to adult education was clearly ille- 
gal. The judgment did not clear up the ambiguity which ex- 
isted regarding what should constitute elementary education, 
and as neither the Education Department nor the Education 
Acts had satisfactorily defined elementary education, the posi- 
tion of the boards was little more definite than it had been 
before. The judgment showed the insecurity of the position of 
many boards which were providing higher elementary, that is 
to say, lower secondary education out of the rates. Parliament 
came at once to the relief of the school boards with an Act 
(1901) which legalized for a year the acts of such authorities 
in connection with "ex-standard" classes, and in 1902 renewed 
the Act of 1 90 1 for another year. 

The Education Act of 1902 

The increasing difficulty which the Voluntary Societies were 
havmg in keeping up the Voluntary schools without aid from 
the rates and the necessity of doing something to relieve the 
ambiguous position of the school boards in the matter of the 
higher grade elementary schools, led the Conservative Govern- 
ment then in power to introduce the Education Bill of 1902. 
This Bill was a further embodiment of the recommendations 
of the Brjxe Commission. It proposed, in short, to make the 
support of Voluntary schools a charge upon the rates equally 



296 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

with the board schools, and to create local education authori- 
ties that would have adequate power over secondary educa- 
tion. The Bill aroused the violent opposition of the Liberal 
party, who protested against what they considered the injus- 
tice of making all persons, irrespective of their religious creed, 
pay for the support in Church schools of a specific type of 
religious instruction. Feeling ran high on the Bill both within 
Parliament and outside of it, but the Government's majority 
was sufficient to force the Bill through to a passage. 

New Local Authorities for Education. — The county 
councils and the councils of county-boroughs (that is the 
boroughs of 50,000 population or more) were constituted the 
local authorities for higher and elementary education within 
their areas. Councils of boroughs having over ten thousand 
inhabitants and urban districts with more than twenty thou- 
sand were constituted the local authorities for elementary edu- 
cation alone. The local authority was to act in respect to 
education matters through an education committee, to which 
all educational affairs should be referred. A majority of the 
education committee were to be members of the council, and 
the remaining members were to be chosen from among per- 
sons with experience in education and acquainted with local 
school needs. The council was empowered to delegate to the 
education committee any of their powers under the Act except 
the powers of raising a rate or borrowing money. In other 
words, the education committee was made responsible for the 
professional, while the council retained responsibility for the 
financial, side of educational administration. As happens 
largely in all branches of English local government, the actual 
administration of education is in the hands of the clerk of the 
committee and his permanent staff. There has developed out 
of the provisions of this Act the increasing tendency for edu- 
cation committees to employ a professional educational ad- 
ministrator with the title director of education. 

The county councils and the county-borough councils had 
authority over a sufficiently extensive area and had command 
over sufficiently large resources to make it possible to plan 



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION 297 

for secondary and higher education, in which was included 
the teacher training colleges. The local authorities were em- 
powered and directed by the Act to "consider the educational 
needs of their area and take such steps as seem to them 
desirable, after consultation with the Board of Education, to 
supply or aid the supply of education other than elementary 
and to promote the general coordination of all forms of edu- 
cation." They continued to apply the funds granted by the 
Local Taxation Act of 1890 (see p. 281) and were further em- 
powered to levy a rate not to exceed twopence in the pound, 
or a little less than one per cent, for secondary and higher 
education. By this new arrangement the councils were en- 
abled to increase the number of secondary schools and to 
supply deficiencies of certain kinds of secondary education. 
What is equally important, the Act enabled the local authori- 
ties and the central authorities as well to give assistance to 
secondary subjects of a general nature. Under the operation 
of the Technical Instruction Act and the Science and Art 
grants, the technical and scientific subjects had received the 
lion's share of public aid. Subterfuges had been practised 
in order to allow aid to all subjects except the classics, but 
even so the general education subjects had suffered. The Act 
of 1902 established authorities that were competent to provide 
that general cultivation of secondary grade upon which alone 
technical education can profitably be erected. 

The Act abolished the school boards and the school attend- 
ance committees and transferred their powers to the new local 
authorities. The board schools were taken over by the local 
authorities and thenceforth were to go by the name of provided 
schools. The Voluntary schools were designated as non-pro- 
vided schools. The latter were to be administered by boards 
of managers of whom two-thirds were to represent the Volun- 
tary Society and one-third were to be appointed by the local 
authorities. The rates were to be applicable without distinc- 
tion to both types of school and the national grants con- 
tinued as before to be given to both. Special provision was 
made for extra national grants to poorer local authorities. 



298 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

The Treatment of the Religious Difficulty. — The local 
authorities were given complete authority over both provided 
and non-provided schools as far as secular instruction v/as 
concerned. They could inspect both types of school and pre- 
scribe courses of study, methods of teaching, and the qualifi- 
cations of teachers. The provided schools were to offer relig- 
ious instruction in accordance with the Cowper-Temple clause 
(see p. 277) while the non-provided schools were allowed to 
give religious instruction according to the religious faith of 
the Society which maintained them. They were, however, 
made subject to the conditions of the Elementary Education 
Act of 1870 regarding the time at which that instruction was 
to be given and were not allowed to discriminate against any 
pupil on religious grounds. The managers of the non-provided 
schools were made responsible for the maintenance of the 
buildings. 

Dissatisfaction over the Act. — The indignation of the 
Nonconformists and the Liberals over the Education Act of 
1902 was extreme. They felt that the Established Church 
interest had gained an extremely important advantage in hav- 
ing the burden of maintaining their schools (for most of the 
non-provided schools were Church of England schools) trans- 
ferred to the public funds. In return for the aid of the rates, 
the managers of the non-provided schools had placed their 
school buildings at the disposal of the local authorities and 
had given the local authorities representation on the local 
boards of managers. But it was thought that the bargain was 
an unequal one, driven through at the expense of a large part 
of the public by the Conservative and Church of England 
group. Many rate-payers refused to pay the rates, allowing 
their property to be sold or even going to jail as a protest 
against the Act. The general dissatisfaction over the Educa- 
tion Act of 1902 was one of the most important of the forces 
that caused the downfall of the Conservative Government 
in 1905. 

The Progress of Thirty Years. — The generation which 
had followed the passage of the Second Reform Act in 1867 



POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION 299 

had seen important changes in English policies respecting 
public education. The passage of the Elementary Education 
Act of 1870 represented the nation's decision that it was the 
business of the government not only to aid elementary educa- 
tion, but to insure universal opportunity for attendance at that 
grade of school. Later legislation made school attendance 
compulsory and opened the elementary schools to all children 
free of charge. The new social conditions that had long been 
making demands on secondary instruction had finally been 
recognized as lit object of governmental concern, and local 
authorities had been established with the function of supply- 
ing that type of education. The educational activities of the 
nation, which had long been allowed to operate without central 
coordination, had finally been brought under the guidance of 
a central authority. In the years that have ensued since the 
passage of the Education Act of 1902 there has been relatively 
small change in the administration of education. The con- 
spicuous educational progress which has taken place has been 
the result, rather, of increased enthusiasm for the improvement 
of existing agencies and the extension of democratic educa- 
tional opportunities. 

ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical Background. — Hayes, A Political and Social 
History of Modern Europe; Hazen, Europe Since 1815; Lowell, The 
Government of England. 

Education Sources. — English Education Acts since 1870 in Edu- 
cation Department Reports; Report of the Cross Commission, 1886; 
Report of the Bryce Commission, 1895. 

Secondary Accounts. — Birchenough, History of Elementary Edu- 
cation in England; DeMontmorency, Progress of Education in England; 
Jackson, Outlines of English Education. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE NEW LIBERALISM AND THE FISHER ACT 

1906-1918 

New Political Alignments. — The Conservative Party had 
been continuously in power since 1895, at which time the 
Liberals under Gladstone's leadership had been shipwrecked on 
the Irish question. There were, however, many causes that 
contributed to a general state of dissatisfaction with Conserva- 
tive policies and led to the decisive overthrow of the Conserva- 
tive Party in the elections of 1906. The system of land owner- 
ship and land tenure which had continued down out of me- 
diaeval times into the present was unfavorable to the tenant 
farmers, and stifling to the ambition and initiative of the farm 
laborer class. The labor unions had become alarmed over 
the decision of the House of Lords in the Taff Vale case, 1901, 
which made the property of trade unions liable for damages 
for acts committed by its members. The general public was 
aroused over the revelations of fraud and incompetence in 
connection with the Boer War, and a considerable section of 
public opinion was opposed to the war altogether. The Lib- 
erals and Non-Conformists, who are, generally speaking, the 
same group, continued to smart over what they considered the 
injustice of the Education Act of 1902. The examination of 
recruits for the Boer War had shown a terrible deterioration 
of the physical fitness of the population of the factory towns. 
A large proportion of the young men who were examined were 
shown to be undersized, under weight, deformed, and diseased 
as the joint result of poor heredity, bad housing, malnutrition, 
and vice. These revelations convinced many voters that the 
government would have to adopt a more vigorous policy of 
social legislation. 

300 



THE FISHER ACT 301 

The Liberal Party became a party of social reform and de- 
clared an implacable warfare "against poverty, vice, and dis- 
ease." The labor interests took on new life and succeeded in 
electing fifty-four members that could be regarded as the direct 
representatives of the working classes with a mandate for con- 
structive industrial and social legislation. The elections of 
1906 thus introduced for the first time an important Labor 
group into Parliament. In coalition with the Irish-Nationalists 
and the Labor group, the Liberals found themselves in pos- 
session of a majority in the House of Commons, which was 
maintained until the outbreak of the war. During their long- 
continued tenure they succeeded in passing, even against the 
will of the obstructionist House of Lords, a long list of impor- 
tant social, economic, and political measures. The spirit which 
has actuated this legislation is sometimes called by the name 
of the New Liberalism. It must never be forgotten that Eng- 
land is an old country, where traditions and vested interests 
maintain their hold with great tenacity and that the New 
Liberalism will but slowly find its way into the habits of 
thought of the nation. But it is none the less true that within 
the last fifteen years laws have been put upon the statute 
books that must inevitably in the course of time lead to a 
fuller and richer conception of democratic government in 
England. A rapid sketch of this legislation is given below. 

Social Legislation since 1906. — In 1906 the principle of 
compensation for workmen who had sustained accidents in 
pursuit of their occupations was extended to cover all indus- 
tries. In 1908, the Old Age Pensions Act was passed, which 
guaranteed to all persons over seventy years of .age a pension 
amounting to five shillings a week in case their yearly incomes 
were not more than twenty-one guineas. It may be noted 
that one person out of every eighty-six in England and Wales 
laid claim to the pension. 

In order to meet the enlarged expenditures which the govern- 
ment was making, the budget of 1909 contained provisions for 
a graduated income tax, an inheritance tax, taxes on luxuries 
of many descriptions, and on the unearned increment of land 



302 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

values. Thus in effect the rich were taxed much more 
heavily than those of moderate income. 

The Labor Exchange Act of 1909 set up government bureaus 
to give information to unemployed workmen as to where work 
might be had. This was intended to counteract some of the 
evils and hardships of unemployment. By the National Insur- 
ance Act of 191 1; England went still farther in the attempt to 
protect the workman against unemployment. A system was 
put into effect whereby the workman paid a small sum each 
week, which was supplemented by his employer and the state. 
He was then entitled to receive six or seven shillings a week 
when he found himself out of work. The other provisions of 
the Act compelled the workman to lay aside each week a small 
sum, to which the employer and the state added, to insure him- 
self against sickness. Additional benefits under the Act were 
free medical attention and free treatment at hospitals. 

The Trade Disputes Act of 1906 made it impossible for the 
courts to assess damages from strikes against the funds of 
trade unions, and granted pickets in strikes the right to use 
peaceful persuasion to keep fellow-workmen or strike-breakers 
from working. In 1909, by the Trade Boards Act, boards 
were set up composed of workmen and employers in equal 
numbers to determine the minimum wages to be paid workers 
in the sweated industries. This principle of the minimum 
wage was extended to cover the wages of miners by the Mini- 
mum Wage Act of 191 2. 

The Housing and Town Planning Act of 1909 aimed at the 
improvement of the bad housing conditions in the great cities. 
It gave local authorities the right to demolish unsanitary tene- 
ments and to purchase land on which to build sanitary ones. 

The Small Holdings and Allotments Act of 1907 was the 
first effort of the Coalition in the direction of eliminating the 
agrarian evil of large landlordism and of giving to all laborers 
on the soil a share in the land they made productive. 

Political Changes. — In the political field, a number of im- 
portant changes have occurred. Since 191 1, members of 
Parliament have been paid annual salaries. This has made it 



THE FISHER ACT 303 

easier for the working classes to be represented by men of 
their own social and economic condition, instead of almost 
exclusively by men of superior social position who were able 
out of their private means to meet the heavy financial demands 
of membership in the House of Commons. In the same year, 
a blow was struck at the veto power of the House of Lords. 
Composed of hereditary and elective peers and the bishops of 
the Established Church, this body had succeeded in retarding 
social evolution in England during the entire period with 
which this study is concerned, and in no province more than 
in matters relating to popular education. By the Parliament 
Act of 191 1 it was provided that the House of Lords could 
not suspend the passage of money measures passed by the 
Commons, and that other laws, in spite of the negative vote 
of the House of Lords, might become law if passed in three 
successive sessions of Parliament. The power remaining to 
the House of Lords to retard social legislation continues to be 
large, but public opinion tends to become more and more 
impatient of the restraints imposed by this privileged aristo- 
cratic body upon the clearly indicated will of the voters. 

Educational Legislation after 1905. — The new spirit in 
English government as exhibited in the above-mentioned legis- 
lation was but tardily reflected in the field of public educa- 
tion. The political coalition which came into power in 1906 
tried to secure the passage of measures that would result in 
the separation of Church and secular interests in the public 
schools. The Liberals took the ground that it was no proper 
function of the state to pay for the instruction of pupils in 
the principles of religion and proposed that such instruction 
should be separately given and exclusively paid for by the 
Voluntary school societies. The House of Lords, however, 
succeeded in interposing its veto, and until the present time 
the state's support continues to be applied for religious in- 
struction in the tenets of specific cults. 

There has been, however, a great deal of educational legis- 
lation which extended to the children in the schools the spirit 
of social welfare work. These laws represented a parallel to 



304 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

the important Acts other than educational named above, and 
embodied the Liberal motive of improving the living conditions 
of the economically disfavored classes. 

The Education (Provision of Meals) Act of 1906 authorized 
local authorities to formulate plans whereby meals might be 
provided at public expense for indigent children attending 
public schools. The scope of this measure was broadened by 
a later law passed in 19 14. By the Administrative Provi- 
sions Act of 1907 local authorities were authorized to set up 
and maintain vacation schools and classes and recreation cen- 
ters for children in the public schools. The same law made 
it incumbent upon local authorities to provide for the medical 
examination of children upon their admission to a public 
elementary school and for follow-up work designed to remove 
physical defects and to increase health and vitality. Along 
with this preventive and curative work with children of school 
age local authorities were allowed to organize voluntary 
"schools for mothers" for the instruction of mothers in the 
care of infants. Permission was also given to establish nur- 
sery schools to afford little children, usually under three years 
of age, the desirable care which they did not and could not 
receive in the home. Later Acts strengthened the provisions of 
the earliest ones (see p. 284) dealing with the education of 
mentally defective and epileptic children. The Children Act 
of 1908, while it was not specifically educational, deserves to 
be mentioned in this connection, because it placed upon the 
local education authorities increased responsibility, particu- 
larly in regard to the school attendance of children and to 
juvenile reform education. 

The Reform Act of 19 18.— In the history of education in 
England, there has been a close parallel between the adoption 
of more democratic educational policies and the extension of 
the franchise. The developments of 19 18 show the same rela- 
tionship, although in this instance the Education Act preceded 
by a few months the Reform Act. In 19 18, a Reform Act 
was passed which gave all men the vote on condition of their 
being twenty-one years of age and having resided or occupied 



THE FISHER ACT 305 

business premises in one place for six months. Any woman 
wlio was thirty years of age and either a local government 
elector or the wife of one was given the vote. The number of 
votes which might be cast by an elector in a general election 
was limited to two. Nomination day was to be the same in all 
constituencies and all polls were to be taken on one day. At 
the same time an increase in membership of the House of 
Commons and a redistribution of seats were provided for. 

The Education Act of 1918, Commonly Called 
THE Fisher Act 

If one has been inclined to disparage the English system of 
public education, it would be well for him to examine the 
provisions of the Fisher Act before forming his final opinion. 
England was slow in making the beginning of public education 
and for many years was halting in its progress toward an effi- 
cient system of educational administration. The sequel seems 
to indicate, however, that the English principle of respect for 
personal liberty and the English system of progress through 
compromise, are sound guides in the development of a na- 
tional policy of education. From the standpoint of maintain- ; 
ing a proper balance between initiative on the part of local ' 
education authorities and central control, between local and 
national financial responsibility, and between the individual's 
freedom of choosing the education to be given his child and 
the demands of the state with reference to that child's edu- 
cation — from the standpoint of these major conditions of sound 
educational policy, it is probably no exaggeration to say that 
the system to be brought into existence through the Fisher 
Act is the most satisfactory to be found in any modern nation. 

The Fisher Act does not represent a great deal of actual 
innovation, but rather develops to a more extreme degree prin- 
ciples and practices that have been familiar. Provisions that 
were common enough in kind were changed in the extent of 
their application. Some powers that had previously been 
exercised by education authorities at their option were made 



3o6 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

compulsory. Functions that have long been exercised were 
redistributed. Many of the clauses of the Act represent a 
consolidation of the education acts that had been passed after 
the Act of 1902. And, yet, when the whole sum of changes 
is added up the Fisher Act represents a profound change in 
the spirit and considerable innovation in the administration 
of English education. 

Education Authorities. — The Education Act of 19 18 con- 
tinues the education authorities of the Act of 1902. At the 
head of the system is retained the Board of Education with 
its Consultative Committee and its permanent staff. The 
county and county-borough councils are the local authorities 
for both elementary and higher education, and the councils of 
non-county-boroughs and urban districts are local authorities 
for elementary education within their areas. Local authorities 
are given power to federate for any specific educational pur- 
pose or for carrying out all their responsibilities under the 
Act. This change allows a desirable degree of flexibility in 
the plans for providing teacher training colleges or any other 
form of higher education which it is uneconomical for any 
single local authority to furnish. 

Balance of Power between Central Authority and Local 
Authorities. — All councils of counties and county-boroughs 
are placed under the practical, although not statutory, neces- 
sity of submitting to the Board of Education "schemes," or 
general plans, which will show how they "propose to use their 
powers and perform their duties with respect to the progressive 
development and comprehensive organization of education in 
their areas." The authorities for elementary education are 
likewise expected to propose schemes to the Board of Edu- 
cation covering their powers and duties under the Act. Pay- 
ment of tjie national grants to any local authority depends 
upon the acceptance by the Board of Education of the scheme 
proposed. When a scheme is accepted it is the duty of the 
local authority to see that it is efficiently carried out. In case 
the scheme submitted is not acceptable to the Board of Edu- 
cation; and in case, further, the central and the local authori- 



THE FISHER ACT 307 

ties cannot agree after a public inquiry, the matter is to be 
referred to Parliament. 

The inspection by the Board of Education of schools main- 
tained by the local authorities is continued, and the Board 
may reduce the grants to local authorities in case its condi- 
tions are not complied with. The new Act does away with 
the many statutory grants according to which the state had 
aided local authorities and in place of them consolidates all 
payments under a "substantive" grant. The computation of 
this grant follows a rather complicated formula. Thirty-six 
shillings are allowed for each average attendance, which is the 
quotient of the total number of attendances divided by the 
number of school sessions. To this sum is added three-fifths 
of the cost of teachers' salaries, one-half of the net expenditure 
for special services (school medical inspection, provision of 
meals, schools for special classes, physical training, evening 
play centers, and nursery schools) , and one-fifth of the remain- 
ing net expenditures. From the sum so arrived at, there is 
deducted the amount that would be produced in the local area 
by a rate, or local tax, of seven pence in the pound upon as- 
sessable value. The result is the amount of the grant. That 
is to say, the state expects each local authority to levy and 
collect a local tax of seven pence in the pound, before it will 
contribute anything. Thereafter it will pay the local authority 
on the basis described above, not more than two-thirds nor 
less than one-half of the total expenditure for education. If 
the sum arrived at according to the formula does not reach 
the lower proportion, the state will make it up through what 
is known as a deficiency grant. Provision is further made for 
increased grants in highly rated (taxed) areas. 

The distribution of powers and responsibilities between local 
authorities and the central authority which the Fisher Act 
brings about, is to be regarded as a highly satisfactory solu- 
tion of the difficult problem involved. It gives the local au- 
thorities a large amount of freedom in organizing education to 
suit the special needs of their areas and encourages them to 
exercise initiative in securing local improvement. At the same 



3o8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

time it gives the central authority general supervision over 
the schools of the entire nation and puts it in a position to 
guide and stimulate and, if need be, coerce, local effort. The 
method of allocating state grants fits well into the administra- 
tive purposes. It stimulates local generosity at the same time 
that it assists the weaker communities. It places upon the 
state a large share of the costs of the minimal school require- 
ments while at the same time it holds out the state bounty as 
a stimulus for local authorities to undertake improvements 
that are only permissive under the Act. 

Attendance Provisions. — The Act raised the upper limit 
of compulsory school attendance, to go into effect after the 
close of the War, to fourteen years, and gave local authorities 
power to raise the age limit to fifteen at their option. At the 
same time all fees for attendance at public elementary schools 
were abolished. Provision was further made for the part 
time attendance of children at continuation schools until the 
age of eighteen, but the full operation of this part of the 
Act cannot go into effect until at least seven years after 
the war, — that is, until i^2h.\ Such young persons as have 
passed the matriculation examination of one of the uni- 
.versities or an examination recognized by the Board of Edu- 
cation as an equivalent, are exempt from this provision, 
as are also those who have been under instruction up to the 
age of sixteen in some school recognized by the Board of 
Education as efficient. Employers are compelled to make 
arrangements whereby young persons will be enabled to attend 
the continuation schools during the hours between eight in 
the morning and seven in the evening of working days. Em- 
ployment of all children under the age of twelve in any ca- 
pacity is forbidden, and the employment of children over 
twelve years of age out of school hours is definitely limited. 
The enforcement of all child-labor and compulsory attendance 
regulations is put into the hands of the local education au- 
thorities. 

Social Service Provisions. — The Fisher Act extended the 
system of medical inspection which had been inaugurated with 



THE FISHER ACT 309 

respect to the elementary schools by the Act of 1907. Here- 
after local education authorities may provide medical exami- 
nation of children in public secondary and continuation schools 
and even in private schools within their area if so requested. 
Additional provision is made for schools for mothers, in which 
training is to be given in prenatal care and the care of infants. 
Local authorities are given permission to provide holiday or 
school camps, as well as centers and equipment for physical 
training, playing fields, swimming pools, and other facilities 
for social and physical training to be enjoyed either in the 
day or in the evening. Another of the powers enjoyed by the 
local authorities which may be considered under the general 
caption of health work, is the permission which they are given 
to establish nursery schools and classes for children over two 
years of age. 

Public Contribution to Denominational Schools Con- 
tinued. — The Fisher Act did not essentially change the situa- 
tion brought about by the Education Act of 1902, whereby 
the public support is given to schools under religious denomi- 
nations in which specific religious dogmas are taught. In other 
words, both local and state revenues continue equally to be 
applied in the support of provided and non-provided, or 
Voluntary schools. 

Closer Official Relationships with Private Schools. — 
The Act substantially changes the position of private schools 
and tends to bring them much more fully under the cognizance 
of civil authorities. All private schools are compelled to forward 
to the Board of Education on a blank form which it provides, 
a statement of name, location, and activities, in accordance 
with the particulars required by the Board of Education, 
Financial penalties are attached to non-compliance with this 
regulation. The Act recognizes attendance in private schools 
as fulfilling the compulsory attendance requirements, but only 
on condition that the school is open to inspection by the local 
education authority or by the Board of Education. In the 
case of secondary schools, they can be accepted as supplying 
education in place of that given in continuation schools only 



310 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

in case they are inspected by a university or by the Board of 
Education. Any private school may request inspection of the 
Board of Education, which may be supplied without cost to 
the applying institution. The practical advantages of such 
inspection have led to very general request for it on the part 
of governing bodies and headmasters of private schools. 

Provision of Scholarships in Secondary Schools. — The 
Fisher Act does not make secondary education free, but it 
contains a very definite expression of liberal attitude on the 
point: "In schemes under this Act adequate provision shall 
be made in order to secure that children and young persons 
shall not be debarred from receiving the benefits of any form 
of education by which they are capable of profiting through 
inability to payJees." The Act further empowers education 
authorities to pay not only the fees of students in higher and 
secondary institutions, but maintenance allowances as well. 

Although there are other details of the Fisher Act that de- 
serve attention, we may not undertake more extended discus- 
sion of it in this connection. Post-war conditions have inter- 
fered with putting its provisions into effect, and the unfavor- 
able financial conditions that are the direct result of the war 
will long delay the full realization of the program outlined. 
But it must be evident, even from the cursory view of the Act 
which we have been permitted to take, that "it inaugurates a 
new era as embodying 'the first real attempt ever made in this 
country (England) to lay broad and deep the foundations of 
a scheme of education which would be truly national.' " ^ It 
is an Act which "represents the new democracy rising to a 
recognition of the function of education in preparing healthy, 
intelligent and responsible citizens." ^ 

A Brief Social and Political Survey of England Today- 
— This historical account of later English education, which 
must now be rapidly concluded, has shown us an old and 
firmly established set of aristocratic institutions undergoing the 
transformation indirectly wrought by the industrial revolu- 

^ Kandel, "Educational Progress in England," Educational Review, 
Vol. LVI, No. s. 



THE FISHER ACT 311 

tion. In the year 1800 the large landowners and the city 
magnates were dominant in every phase of the national life. 
The working classes were unrepresented in government. Cor- 
responding to this social arrangement, the governing classes 
alone were educated, except as benevolence prescribed a mini- 
mum of moral and religious instruction for the children of the 
poor as a form of social prophylaxis. For the education of 
the ruling caste there were the public and the better grammar 
schools and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. For 
the poor there was an accidental and altogether inadequate 
provision of charity or dame schools. In England today the 
franchise is universal, and government is "of the people, by 
the people, and for the people." Education, also, has corre- 
spondingly broadened to mean the preparation of all orders 
of society for the efficient performance of a wide range of 
political and economic functions. 

From the political standpoint, England today has a system 
of government that responds more immediately to the common 
will than does that of the United States, and its franchise is 
almost equally broad. With the exceptions of the power re- 
tained by the House of Lords, of the privileges enjoyed by 
the Established Church, and of the institution of royalty, 
England in a political sense, is thoroughly democratic. And 
yet from the social point of view England presents a complex 
picture of mingled aristocracy and democracy. The working 
classes, through the political power they enjoy and through 
the advantageous labor legislation which has been passed 
within the last twenty years, are gaining in power and influ- 
ence, and they are to a certain extent ambitious to gain the 
cultivation and breadth of view which they recognize as the 
marks of social superiority.^ They have their own represen- 
tatives in the House of Commons, but for the most part they 
prefer to be represented by persons of place and wealth. 
Social movement is comparatively free, but there are at the 
same time recognized social classes. The real rulers of Eng- 
land continue to be those who go from the public schools and 

'See New Republic, Supplement, Feb. 16, 1Q18. 



312 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge into the appointive 
positions of the Civil Service and to the House of Commons. 
The middle class tends to enter more freely into politics, but 
usually after a long period devoted mainly to business. The 
great mass of the people, as must be practically the case in any 
great industrial society under present conditions, are the sub- 
jects of political guidance and remain in a position of eco- 
nomic and social inferiority. The main difference between 
the United States and England lies in the greater number of 
exceptions from the rule in the former country and in the 
franker acceptance in England of the terms of social classifi- 
cation. The upper classes know that they are the upper classes 
and the lower classes know that they themselves are the lower 
classes. Between the two extremes there is a ceaseless inter- 
change of position and every conceivable gradation of eco- 
nomic and social rank. Which is to say that England is an 
aristocratic society maintained on the basis of wealth and 
birth and position, but undergoing rapid transformation 
toward a freer social organization. England has achieved her 
democracy through deliberate reorganization of her institu- 
tions in response to the new demands of an industrialized 
society, and many of the traditions and estimates of value 
that belong with aristocracy have continued over into the pres- 
ent. The United States found its democracy in the fertile 
fields of the boundless frontier, and such aristocracy as exists 
in the United States is a development out of a broad sub- 
structure of complete social equality. 

The English System of Schools. — The strong survival of 
aristocracy in English society is definitely reflected in the edu- 
cational system. "The son of a parent in the middle classes is 
never by any chance found sitting cheek by jowl with the 
laborer's son on the benches of the public elementary school. 
The laborer's son invariably begins his education in the free 
elementary school, although, in the later stages of it, he may, 
through the munificent provision of scholarships, pass through 
both the secondary school and the university. The son of a 
parent in the upper middle class just as invariably begins his 



THE FISHER ACT 313 

education either at home under a tutor or, as is more frequently 
the case, in a private preparatory school, where he remains 
until he is old enough to be transferred to a secondary school." ^ 
Elementary education is separate from secondary education and 
parallels and overlaps it. The elementary school pupil does 
not complete the work of that school as the basis of promotion 
to the secondary school. In case he leaves the elementary 
school it is on condition of meeting a competitive standard 
and usually before the end of the course, say not later than 
his twelfth year. He transfers from one to the other; he is 
not promoted from the elementary to the secondary school. 
For the work that must be done preliminary to undertaking 
secondary school studies, the pupil who does not enter from 
the elementary school is taught by a private tutor or in a 
preparatory school. Fees are charged in the preparatory 
school and it is a part of the secondary rather than of the 
elementary school system. 

The son of the laborer, artisan, or lower-middle-class parent 
attends the public free elementary school. If he shows any 
particular promise or ambition he has an excellent opportunity 
to gain a tuition scholarship in a secondary school. Most of 
the secondary schools that received grants from the Board of 
Education under the arrangement which existed previous to 
the passage of the Fisher Act, were compelled to maintain at 
least twenty-five per cent of all places free of tuition cost and 
open to pupils from the elementary schools. The spirit of the 
new Act guarantees at least the continuance of this propor- 
tion of free places, and contemplates an increase. It is said 
that under present conditions practically any boy who so 
desires and possesses fair ability is assured of free secondary 
school tuition, and once the secondary school is reached, his 
chances of entering the university are dependent on his industry 
and his capacity. After the system of continuation schools 
which is provided for in the Act of 19 18 will have been estab- 
lished, the elementary school pupil who has not entered a 
secondary school will continue his education at the same time 

^Sandiford, Comparative Education, p. 202. 



314 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

that he is working for his living up to the age of sixteen, and 
ultimately eighteen years. In the continuation school his 
general education will be extended and he will be given work 
that will be broadly preparatory to his vocation. 

We have in an earlier connection (see p. 287) described the 
efforts of local education authorities to provide a more ex- 
tended course of study in the elementary system which went 
under the name of higher grade elementary school. That 
general type of school has continued, but it tends to take a 
different form of organization and the name central or inter- 
mediate school. The curriculum of these schools corresponds 
pretty closely to that of the French higher primary school and 
partly to that of the American high school, and it is designed 
to furnish a broad foundation for specific commercial and 
industrial training to be given later. The teachers in the 
central schools are usually superior to those in the elementary 
schools and the work done in the central schools is in quality 
more like that of the secondary schools. The pupils of these 
schools are selected from the elementary schools. 

The system of secondary schools in England, if it is a 
system at all, is extremely complex, as we are prepared to 
believe from the study we have already made of its origins. 
There are the following kinds of secondary schools to be taken 
into account: ^ (i) the first-grade public schools, which are 
chiefly boarding schools; (2) the first-grade schools, public 
and endowed, which are chiefly day schools; (3) the second- 
grade endowed schools; (4) high schools for girls; (5) secon- 
dary schools maintained by county and county-borough coun- 
cils. Besides these pretty definite types there are large num- 
bers of private secondary schools of uncertain character. The 
preparatory schools have already been mentioned as giving 
only the studies preliminary to secondary instruction proper. 

The First-Grade Public Schools. — The first-grade public 
schools, of which there are about sixty, continue to be the 

^ Based on Sandiford, "Education in England," in Sandiford, Com- 
parative Education, and Norwood and Hope, Higher Education of Boys 
in England. 



THE FISHER ACT 315 

schools of the upper and wealthy classes. There is nothing 
in the American system of education which corresponds to 
them more closely than the old "prep" schools like Phillips 
Exeter and Andover, but even here the analogy is not close. 
In the English schools, which are boarding schools, the boys, 
selected in the first place from an aristocracy of wealth, or 
brains, or both, come under the influence of well-established 
tradition. They are in close contact with men who are them- 
selves the product of the public school-university system and 
who believe that system to be well-nigh perfect. The new boy 
is caught up into a set of school boy "mores" and is moulded 
by them to know "good form," to practice "good form," and 
to believe "good form" to be the supreme standard of conduct. 
He learns there, or he strengthens, habits of speech which will 
mark him the rest of his life as having attended a public 
school. This mark of caste is so clearly recognized that a spe- 
cial dictionary has been prepared to indicate the ways of pro- 
nouncing the English language according to the public school 
mode. A considerable part of his time is given to the practice 
of outdoor games. His intellectual education continues to be 
predominantly classical, although the modern side is given 
considerable attention. The tradition of self-government 
among the boys of the public schools is continued to the 
present time and is regarded as one of the most important of 
agencies for the formation of character. 

Other Secondary Schools. — The public and endowed day 
schools, which may be generally described under the name 
grammar schools, are less expensive and exclusive than the 
public boarding schools and they are also more responsive to 
local needs as respects curriculum. Many boys find their way 
from these schools to the older universities, while many others 
pass from them into the provincial universities. 

The secondary schools maintained by the county and 
county-borough councils have had vigorous development since 
the passage of the Act of 1902, which provided for their estab- 
lishment. By 1914 there were 433 such schools recognized 
by the Board of Education as efficient. They are mainly coedu- 



3i6 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

cational and their pupils are the children of the lower middle 
class and the brighter and more ambitious children of the 
laboring class. The teachers of these schools are largely 
drawn from among the graduates of the provincial universi- 
ties. It is with this class of schools that the extension of 
democracy in English education mainly rests. Their phe- 
nomenal growth and the lively interest which public authori- 
ties exhibit toward them promise rapid future development 
in their number and influence. 

The Older Universities. — The Universities of Oxford and 
Cambridge still continue to represent the last stage of the 
education of members of the upper classes and they continue 
to be the main avenues to political opportunity. They are, 
however, much more than just higher schools for completing 
the education of gentlemen and cloistered retreats for schol- 
arly research. They have definitely accepted a share of re- 
sponsibility for the prosecution of modern scientific and pro- 
fessional research and are constantly enlarging their activities 
in that direction. Their connection with the secondary schools 
through the examinations and the school inspections which 
they conduct has been and is a great public service, while 
their activities in the field of university extension carry their 
influence over all of England and put them in touch with all 
classes of English society. 

Provincial Universities and University Colleges. — The 
older universities exercise less and less a monopoly over higher 
education. They continue to maintain a unique place, but the 
very uniqueness of their educational service is a limitation. 
The growth of provincial universities and university colleges 
goes on apace. At present there are eleven universities besides 
the old ones of Oxford and Cambridge. These institutions 
emphasize professional and technical research while at the 
same time providing for general education of a high type. 
They correspond closely to the x'\merican university. They 
are not exclusive in the social sense and they provide the 
higher education demanded for all except the sons of the upper 
classes. It is this type of higher institution that the middle 



THE FISHER ACT 317 

class or even lower class scholarship holders are likely to 
attend. 

The Schools and Social Opportunity. — English education 
may be seen to correspond to the general social conditions of 
the country. The old aristocracy is represented in the public 
schools and the older universities. The universal franchise 
and the new spirit of social welfare are reflected in the univer- 
sal provision of free elementary schools and all the "good 
works" that are carried on in them. The social opportunity 
for the poor boy or girl is to be found in the system of scholar- 
ships in secondary schools which are intended to reward 
ability and stimulate ambition. The vast unclassifiable por- 
tion of English society who are included between the upper 
and lower extremes find educational opportunities to meet 
their social aspirations and their financial means in the almost 
bewildering variety of secondary schools and in the provincial 
universities. 

Nationalism in English Education. — It is a noteworthy 
fact that England seems to have used the schools hardly at 
all as a means of nationalistic propaganda. In this respect 
that country stands out in strong contrast with Prussia and 
France. It is not to be forgotten, however, that the conditions 
which led those countries to turn the schools into nurseries 
of patriots were largely lacking in England. England had 
been a nation for centuries while Germany continued to be 
a "geographical expression." At the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century England already securely had what Prussia 
consciously started out to get. English national unity runs 
back at least as far as the time of Elizabeth. German national 
unity only began to be thought of after the disaster of Jena 
and the Treaty of Tilsit. In order to attain what was regarded 
as a political necessity, Prussia created a system of schools 
which from the beginning exhibited the motive for their crea- 
tion. History was taught to make patriots, as were geography 
and literature and any other school subject that might by any 
chan.:e be impressed for that service. 

The English, on the other hand, have taken national unity 



3i8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

and patriotism for granted on the part of all the people. They 
have tried to make the children of all the people morally 
better and more intelligent through the schools, but they have 
never used the schools for nationalistic ends. The worst you 
can say about the English in this respect is that they seem 
pretty consistently to have ignored the existence of other 
nations in their school instruction, but for that matter they 
have almost as completely ignored the study of their own 
past as a people and the social studies that deal with con- 
temporary problems of citizenship. Under the iron rule of the 
system of payment by results, the elementary schools up to 
1890 drilled away on a narrow curriculum of the "three R's." 
History, geography, English literature, and elementary science 
were little taught, or, when taught, suffered from the preva- 
lent practice of drill on facts. In the short time that has 
elapsed since the removal of the examination system, the 
curriculum of the elementary schools has been broadened and 
better methods of teaching have been introduced. The old 
tradition to a considerable extent, however, continues to exert 
its influence. 

The system of administration which has been in vogue in 
England has made it difficult for any national program of 
patriotic instruction to be instituted by the central authori- 
ties and it is doubtful if those authorities would have insti- 
tuted such a program in case it had lain within their power. 
The entire tradition of English education and even the very 
traits of English character seem to oppose the notion of pa- 
triotic propaganda through the schools. Like demonstrations 
of personal affection, expressions of love for country seem to 
be regarded as contrary to good form. The public school boy 
would probably regard fervid expressions of love of country 
as "swank"; but he would nevertheless go out to die in the 
mud and slime of "Flanders' fields" as a matter of course. 
The English elementary history books contain expressions like 
"with true British pluck," or "as gallant British seamen 
should," but they exhibit few or no examples of national 



THE FISHER ACT 319 

boasting and they do not distort the facts of history for 
nationalistic ends. 

It is possible that the English have avoided the use of the 
schools for purposes of nationalistic propaganda on the basis 
of principle. It is possible that they have done so as a result 
of the accidental evolution of their national system of schools. 
What England will do in respect to civic and nationalistic 
instruction after the war remains to be seen. There is some 
feeling being expressed that it should be given more attention 
than it has been given in the past. The Germans have overdone 
patriotic instruction, it has been said, but the English have 
not done enough in that direction. But whatever change 
occurs, it is not likely that the English, considering their con- 
nections with a truly international Empire, will consciously 
adopt a narrowing and provocative type of civic instruction 
in the public schools. 

ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical and Institutional Background. — Hayes, A 
Political and Social History of Modern Europe; Hazen, Europe Since 
1815; Lowell, The Governmetit of England. 

Education Sources. — The Education Act of 1918 in United States 
Bureau of Education, Bulletin, igig. No. g, Kandel, Education in Eng- 
land and Ireland. 

Secondary Accounts. — Kandel, see previous reference; Kandel, 
"Educational Progress in England" in Educational Review, December, 
1918; Norwood and Hope, Higher Education of Boys in England; 
Sandiford, "Education in England," in Sandiford, Comparative Education, 



PART IV 
THE UNITED STATES 



CHAPTER XV 

THE NEW FEDERAL STATE AND THE PASSING 
OF AN OLD POLITICAL ORDER 

(1789-1828) 

The Degree of Political Union among the Thirteen 
Original States. — When the thirteen Colonies had broken the 
ties of political connection with the mother country, they 
regarded themselves as independent not only of England but 
of one another. Among them there was little feeling of politi- 
cal union. They were a group of American republics and not 
in any sense a single and unified nation. Owing to the ab- 
sence of easy means of intercommunication there had been little 
trade carried on among the Colonies. There had been small 
interchange of printed matter and little correspondence among 
individuals living in widely separated sections. The Colonies 
had been closer to England as the result of ties of commerce 
and intellectual exchange than to one another. They possessed 
no common cultural tradition, and to some extent were sepa- 
rated by antipathies based on historical prejudice and on 
widely differing economic and social conditions. 

On the other hand, it is not true to say that there was a 
complete absence of feeling for all the states regarded as a 
political whole. While the Declaration of Independence de- 
clared the states separately independent of Great Britain, the 
action taken was a joint and concerted manifesto of the repre- 
sentatives of the thirteen states sitting as a Continental Con- 
gress. The enthusiasm engendered in the struggle against a 
common opponent produced expressions of unity among the 
states, led to concerted action, and brought about immediately 
and as a matter of course a frame of government that was 
nationwide in its jurisdiction although limited in its powers. 

2>22> 



324 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

From the beginning of the struggle against the home govern- 
ment there was a very definite recognition of common griev- 
ances and the strong presupposition of a common administra- 
tion of the mihtary effort undertaken to put an end to those 
grievances. 

Loose Political Union under the Articles of Confedera- 
tion. — The indefinite nature of the central government which 
sufficed in the thirteen states between 1776 and 1789 is indi- 
cated clearly enough in the powers given to the Continental 
Congress in the Articles of Confederation. This frame of 
government was ratified in 1778 by all the states except 
Maryland and remained valid until the ratification of the 
Constitution of the United States of America in 1789. Ac- 
cording to its terms, Congress was given complete jurisdiction 
over foreign and military affairs. All decisions in the Con- 
gress were made by the votes of state representations taken as 
a unit, and for an affirmative vote the assent of nine states 
was required. But when a decision was made by the Conti- 
nental Congress, its effectiveness depended upon the acquies- 
cence and the executive efficiency of the several states. Con- 
gress could vote to raise an army of so many men and allot 
to the various states their proportionate quotas, but the actual 
enlistment of the soldiers depended upon the action of the 
states. The same condition held in respect to the raising of 
funds for meeting the expenses incurred under the prerogatives 
vested in Congress. Congress could negotiate a treaty, as it 
did, which called for the reimbursement of British subjects 
for losses incurred during the War of Independence; but the 
legislation and the administrative action which were necessary 
on the part of the state governments to put that agreement 
into action, were in many cases refused. 

So long as the War of Independence continued, the practical 
necessity for agreement impelled compromises and cooperation 
and enabled the Congress to carry on with a semblance of 
authority the functions with which it had been entrusted; 
but when the war was over and foreign and military affairs 
became relatively unimportant. Congress found itself impotent 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 325 

in a political situation in which domestic issues over which it 
had no jurisdiction became predominant. Desirous of meeting 
their financial obligations by other means than direct taxa- 
tion, the individual states erected customs barriers against their 
neighbors which were the source of endless and violent hos- 
tihty. Territorial disputes, such as that over the possession 
of the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania, almost led to open 
war. More threatening than anything else was the financial 
chaos into which the country fell as the result of unprotected 
issues of paper money by the various states. Credit abroad 
was destroyed, coin disappeared from circulation, and a gen- 
eral war between debtor and creditor classes seemed imminent. 

The Constitution of the United States.— By 1786 the 
commercial situation in the states had become so critical that 
an informal gathering was called in Annapolis to propose 
means of improvement. This convention was poorly attended 
and accomplished little except to pave the way for a later 
convention called at Philadelphia in 1787 to devise provisions 
"necessary to render the constitution of the federal govern- 
ment adequate to the exigencies of the Union." Out of the 
deliberations of this body arose the Constitution of the United 
States. 

The chief difficulty which the Constitutional Convention 
had to deal with was the unwillingness of the several states to 
relinquish in any degree their independent sovereignty. The 
small states feared the domination of the large states and all 
in common feared the possible oppressive use of power on the 
part of a strong central government. Yet practically all agreed 
that the existing chaotic situation could not be allowed to 
continue. The details of the compromise arrived at between 
these opposing interests are too many and intricate to be 
enumerated in this connection. Suffice it to say that the in- 
strument of government finally prepared and presented to the 
states for ratification provided for a federal government which 
was given all powers necessary for the conduct of foreign 
affairs. In their dealings with foreign governments the states 
agreed to act as one and placed the negotiation of treaties and 



32 6 NATIONALISM AND ELUCATION SINCE 1789 

the control of the army and navy in the hands of the central 
government. The financial and commercial difficulties of the 
period following the Revolution led the Convention to make 
the coinage of money and the imposition of excise and customs 
duties a national concern. The question as to the power of 
the central government to coerce a state through military oper- 
ations was left unanswered. 

The erection of a bicameral legislative body relieved the 
difficulty between the large and the small states. In the Senate 
representation was to be by states on an equal basis, while 
the House of Representatives was to be composed of members 
allotted to the states on the basis of population. The chief 
executive function was vested in a President, to be chosen by 
an electoral college equal in numbers to the combined repre- 
sentation of the states in the Senate and the House. A Vice- 
President was provided to serve in case of the death or disa- 
bility of the President. The Constitution implied the exist- 
ence of executive departments, four of which, — the Depart- 
ments of State, Treasury, and War, and the Attorney General- 
ship, Congress at once instituted. The judicial power in the 
new nation was to reside in the Supreme Court and such in- 
ferior courts as Congress might see fit to establish. The status 
and functions of the Supreme Court were not clearly deter- 
mined in the fundamental law and this branch of the govern- 
ment within the three decades following the adoption of the 
Constitution developed a significance and strength not at all 
contemplated by the Constitutional Convention. The Supreme 
Court has been one of the most influential agencies in our 
country's history operating in the direction of strong central 
authority. 

Question regarding the Powers of the Federal Govern- 
ment. — Whether the new instrument of government provided 
a highly unified national government or a loose federation of 
states which retained much of their sovereign power, was un- 
known at the time of its adoption. Its supporters included 
both those who desired to set up a strong national government 
and those who desired a large degree of state autonomy. Ap- 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 327 

parently both of these opposing parties saw in the Constitu- 
tion an instrument which embodied their own political ideals. 
The question of the relationship between state powers and 
national sovereignty came up again and again in our early 
history and was finally settled only with the defeat of the 
South in the war between the states. 

In general it may be said that the new national government 
was one of "enumerated powers." In theory it possessed only 
such powers as were specifically given to it in the Constitu- 
tion. In order to make this point more emphatic, the tenth 
amendment, adopted almost immediately after the Constitu- 
tion went into effect, that is to say in 1791, specifically stated 
that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Con- 
stitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, were reserved to 
the states respectively or to the people. The Federalist Party, 
which first essayed to pilot the new ship of state, believed that 
the Constitution gave the national government all the powers 
that were essential to efficient and vigorous public policy. The 
Republicans, who succeeded to power in 1800, believed that 
the powers necessary to the central government for its effi- 
ciency, were rather limited. The practical differences between 
the two parties in their use of the Federal authority were not 
great. Indeed, the second administration of Thomas Jefferson, 
a Republican, was notable for the active participation of the 
federal government in what might justly be interpreted as 
state concerns. 

Early Threats against National Unity. — The early years 
of the new nation did not pass, however, without serious threats 
against the unity achieved under the Constitution. The Vir- 
ginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 affirmed the right 
of the individual states to declare void any federal legislation 
that interfered with fundamental liberties not covered in the 
enumerated powers of the federal government. The War of 
18 1 2 found the New England states in a condition of almost 
open revolt against the national government and in 18 14 the 
Hartford Convention, composed of representatives of the states 
of the New England section, debated the advisability of with- 



328 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

drawing from the Union. It was probably only the disap- 
pearance of their grievances with the conclusion of the war that 
averted their open break with the Union at that time. In 
spite, however, of these threats against national unity, the 
frame of the federal government proved strong enough to 
withstand such shocks as it was called upon to endure in the 
course of these early years. 

The Federal Constitution and Democracy, — If democ- 
racy is considered to mean representative government the new 
constitution was democratic enough. All the powers of gov- 
ernment were derived therein, more or less directly, from the 
consent of those who possessed the right to vote. If democracy 
is taken to mean manhood suffrage and the immediate response 
of government to popular will, the new government of the 
United States could hardly have been classified as democratic. 
The men who represented the various states in the Constitu- 
tional Convention were almost without exception representative 
of the wealthy classes of the population and sympathetic with 
their demands for a strong government that would protect 
property. The economic conflict which was raging between the 
debtor and creditor classes even while the deliberations of the 
Convention were taking place, had lessened the enthusiasm 
for extreme democracy which many leaders of public opinion 
had temporarily experienced in the first years of the War of 
Independence. Optimism regarding popular sovereignty had 
given place to a deep distrust of the exercise of political powers 
on the part of those who did not possess the balancing motive 
of property ownership. 

It is not a matter of surprise, then, that the Constitution 
should exhibit many devices designed "to check the sweep and 
power of popular majorities." The election of the President by 
an electoral college was proposed as a means of keeping the 
selection of the chief magistrate in safe hands. The electors, 
equal in number to the total number of Senators and Repre- 
sentatives in Congress, were to be chosen according to a method 
to be prescribed by the individual states. Incidentally it may 
be mentioned that up to the year 1800 the electors were directly 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 329 

voted for by the people in only four states out of sixteen. 
In all the others they were chosen by the legislatures or by 
some other restricted group. The constitutional provision for 
the election of the members of the Senate by the legislatures 
was likewise intended to keep at least one house out of the 
immediate control of the people. The long tenure of office pre- 
scribed for senators and the large powers given to the Senate 
may also be considered as a bulwark against precipitate popular 
demands. The records of the Convention show that there was 
a strong desire among the delegates to impose a real-property 
restriction upon the right to vote for members of the House of 
Representatives, but the necessity of getting the new instru- 
ment of government ratified by the people of the separate states 
compelled the adoption of the suffrage provisions of the sep- 
arate states as the basis of eligibility to vote for national repre- 
sentatives. In this way the most liberal provision for the 
exercise of the suffrage contained in the Federal Constitution 
was only as liberal as the suffrage provisions in the various 
states. The real key to an understanding of the political tem- 
per of the times is, accordingly, the suffrage clauses of the 
state constitutions. 

The Suffrage in the States. — Of the thirteen original states 
at the time of the adoption of the Federal Constitution, only 
four, namely, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, North Carolina 
and Delaware, did not make the ownership of real property 
a qualification of the elector, and even in these four states only 
those who paid taxes were allowed to vote. In the restrictions 
placed upon the exercise of political power we see the same 
principle that was exhibited in the provisions of the French 
constitutions before 1848 and in British political practice 
until 1884. Certainly it was not a political axiom in the early 
years of our political history that manhood suffrage should 
be the basis of political representation. On the contrary, there 
was exhibited in the conditions governing the exercise of the 
suffrage a universal conviction that landless men, non-taxpayers, 
persons that had no property stake in the government, were 
unfit to participate in the making of laws and in their adminis- 



330 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

tration. It has been estimated that taking the country as a 
whole, less than one-iifth of the entire white male population 
enjoyed the right to vote in 1789. 

If property qualifications in most of the states controlled the 
mere right to cast a vote, the provisions regarding eligibility 
for office were still more restrictive. The higher the office, the 
higher was the property qualification. Longer residence re- 
quirements than those necessary for voting were usual, and the 
religious qualification, which had been eliminated before 1789 
in all the states as far as mere voters were concerned, was 
apparently regarded as a valuable safeguard to the efficiency 
of public service, for it was retained as a qualification of eli- 
gibility to the offices of representative, senator and governor 
in almost all the states. 

The general tendency in the states in 1789 was to make the 
legislature the center of the government. The governors of 
states were not uniformly given the veto power and in some 
states they were elected by the legislatures. The members of 
the judiciary were generally appointed by the legislatures to 
hold office during good behavior. All which provisions indicate 
the intention of keeping the control of government somewhat 
removed from popular enthusiasm and of curtailing the powers 
of the general run of voters. 

The attitude of the men who framed the federal 'Constitution 
and the contemporary state constitutions had about it a good 
deal of the Old World tradition, even though the restrictions 
upon political representation had been considerably relaxed. 
The great changes in American political theory and practice 
which came to full sweep in the election of 1828 were dependent 
upon economic and social conditions which, even before the 
framing of the Constitution, were beginning to be felt. Ameri- 
can democracy is the child of cheap land. To see and compre- 
hend its origins we must turn to the American frontier. 

The Frontier and Democracy. — The term frontier is de- 
scriptive partly of the area of cheap — in fact, almost free — 
land lying beyond the older and more highly developed settle- 
ments, and partly also of the spirit of adventure, hardihood and 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 331 

equality which animated the men and women who lived on the 
outposts of civilization. 

In 1800 more than two-thirds of the population of the United 
States lived within fifty miles of tidewater. The remainder 
were scattered throughout the back country in sparse clus- 
ters of settlements separated by wide stretches of virgin forest. 
The southern and eastern parts of Vermont and the greater 
part of New Hampshire were pretty well filled up with New 
England settlers. Maine was yet in large part a wilderness and 
western New York was quite unoccupied. A thin wedge of 
settlement had poured through the passes of the AUeghenies 
into Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Ohio River Valley. Even 
these outposts were separated by a wide stretch of practically 
uninhabited territory and beyond them lay the wilderness. 

The Pioneers. — The men and women who went into the 
virgin lands of the back country to find homes for themselves 
and their children did so with high hopes of bettering their 
condition. Cheap land and the prospect of independence con- 
stituted the prize which led them to forsake the comparative 
comforts of life in the settled areas and pit their unaided 
strength of body and ingenuity of mind against the labors and 
perils of pioneering. Men who had been unsuccessful in 
business in the East, tenant farmers who despaired of ever 
being able to own their own farms in the older country, arti- 
sans who were dissatisfied with the conditions of labor and 
its rewards, — these and many other types, at once discontented 
and ambitious, pressed into the open West where not only a 
living but a more dearly prized independence were almost cer- 
tainties for the stout of heart. 

On the frontier, life was simple, even harsh. Social distinc- 
tions, which were perhaps inevitable in the more complex east- 
ern society with its economic differences, disappeared in the 
substantial equality of the individuals making up the western 
settlements. Each householder was on his own land and prac- 
tically every family was limited to the use and enjoyment of 
what it could produce. Industry, courage, loyalty, and friend- 
liness were the prized qualities of character and no adventi- 



332 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

tious badges of birth or place could serve as substitutes. A 
flank movement was turned on the suffrage conditions of the 
older sections of the country, since in the new country almost 
without exception citizen meant freeholder and taxpayer. 
Furthermore, the class who in the older regions had for gen- 
erations assumed control of all political duties, had been left 
behind, and the new communities were compelled to organize 
for themselves such local political agencies as were sufficient 
for the small needs of pioneer existence. As a matter of 
course, in communities so uniformly constituted there was no 
bar to the participation of all in the common political life. 

Manhood Suffrage a Product of the Frontier. — It has 
been frequently enough pointed out that the back country of 
the older states was as truly frontier as the new lands opened 
up for settlement beyond the Alleghenies. The same economic 
and social conditions were there present and the same political 
tendencies were active. These frontier regions were, however, 
tied up to the conservative eastern parts of the same states 
and changes in institutions were slower there than in the new 
communities independent of precedent and vested interest. 
Democracy based on manhood suffrage was born on the fron- 
tier. As early as 1772 the settlement of Watauga in what is 
now Tennessee, adopted Articles of Association in which man- 
hood suffrage and religious freedom were provided for. In 
1777 Vermont, a frontier New England state, adopted a con- 
stitution containing a provision for manhood suffrage. In 1791 
Vermont was admitted to the Union with the same rule gov- 
erning the franchise. In 1780 the Cumberland settlements 
adopted a social compact which was signed by every adult 
male settler and which likewise provided for full manhood 
suffrage. Kentucky, admitted in 1792, had the same suffrage 
provision; Tennessee, admitted in 1796, retained the freehold 
qualification, but did not specify value of holdings, and under 
the conditions which obtained in the state at that time, this 
meant next to no restriction. Ohio, coming in in 1803, and 
Louisiana in 1812, retained the provision that the citizen must 
have paid taxes to be allowed to vote. In the year following 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 333 

its admission, Ohio repealed even this moderate quahfication. 
With the exception of Mississippi, every state admitted to the 
Union after 181 2 provided for manhood suffrage in its original 
constitution. 

Government Made Responsive to Popular Will. — 
Equally as important as the new basis for the exercise of the 
right to vote, was the determination exhibited in the consti- 
tutions of the new states that political administration should 
be directly responsive to the popular will. In the older states, 
the legislatures were the center of government and in many 
cases chose the governor and other important officials. In the 
new states the governor, elected by the people, was given 
the power to veto legislative acts. The number of offices to 
be filled by election was greatly increased. Even judges were 
to be chosen by the vote of the people for specific terms. Of- 
fice holding came to be regarded more or less as a political 
right like that of the suffrage. Special qualifications for office 
were eliminated and the practice of rotation in office began to 
operate as a political principle of the highest merit. 

Democratic Changes in the Older States. — It was to be 
expected that the older states would feel the political influ- 
ence of the frontier, for in an economic sense they were in 
direct competition with it. Following the Revolution, but 
especially after 1800, a steady stream of emigrants made their 
way into the back country of New England and New Yorjc in 
the region west of the mountains. It is reported that even 
whole villages with their pastors and schoolmasters moved 
into the new land of promise. The older communities began 
to see in their loss of population and the rapid growth of 
the newer sections not only economic decay, but the loss of 
political representation in national affairs. Certainly one of 
the motives that operated in the reform of the suffrage in the 
New England and Middle States was the desire to make 
political conditions at home as liberal as they were in the new 
country that was calling so invitingly to every person with a 
grievance. 

The first of the older states to remove the last restriction 



334 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

upon voting was New Hampshire, which did so in 1792. Such 
a change was to be expected in that state, because the condi- 
tions of life there were so much like those of Vermont, which 
was a true frontier state and the first to enter the Union on 
the basis of manhood suffrage. Delaware removed the prop- 
erty qualification in 1792, while retaining the tax-paying pro- 
vision. Maryland in 1809 abolished all property and tax quali- 
fications and South Carolina did the same in the year following. 
Connecticut adopted a new constitution in 18 18 in which tax- 
paying or militia service was made to serve as alternative to a 
small freehold for the right to vote. In New York a con- 
stitutional convention held in 182 1 abolished the property 
qualification but retained a tax-paying qualification with such 
alternatives as practically nullified it. A referendum in 1826 
abolished even this slight restriction on the suffrage. Massa- 
chusetts in 1820 relaxed the real property in favor of a tax- 
paying qualification. Rhode Island alone, among the northern 
states, retained her colonial constitution with its restricted 
franchise until the middle of the century. In the southern 
states, other than those mentioned above, suffrage reform did 
not occur until after the Jacksonian political revolution, and 
then with such qualifications as were consistent with the con- 
servative political temper of that section of the Union. 

By way of summary, it will be seen that before 1828 every 
state north of Virginia, with the exception of Rhode Island, 
had either achieved manhood suffrage or had lowered the re- 
strictions upon voting to such an extent that practically every 
white male, not a pauper, who had established his residence 
in a community, was entitled to vote. In the southern states, 
the development and extension of the plantation system in 
the raising of cotton after 18 10, which was in turn bound up 
with the maintenance and extension of slavery, introduced a 
social and economic regime that tended to resist popular politi- 
cal control. This differentiation of economic and political con- 
ditions, with its important influence on education, will receive 
consideration in a later connection. 

The Simplicity of Early American Life. — During the 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 335 

period under consideration, which extends from the adoption 
of the federal Constitution to the first election of Andrew Jack- 
son in 1828, life in the United States was overwhelmingly- 
rural. In 1790 only three and one-third per cent of the popu- 
lation lived in towns of eight thousand inhabitants or over; 
in 1820, slightly less than five per cent; and in 1830, about 
six and three-fourths per cent. Slight beginnings had been 
made in the introduction of the factory system of manufacture 
in the New England states, where textile mills developed dur- 
ing the first and second decades of the new century; but the 
rapid spread of the industrial revolution throughout the 
states began with the twenties. The organization of the Me- 
chanics Union of Trade Associations in Philadelphia in 1827 
is said to represent the real beginning of the American labor 
movement. During the period under discussion the conditions 
of labor, the processes of manufacture and the tools used in 
the occupations were about the same as they had been during 
the colonial period. Agriculture was the principal pursuit. 
With the exception of the extension of steamboat travel in the 
navigable rivers, the means of communication had improved 
but little over those which had been available for the traveler 
of Revolutionary times. But little was produced on the farms 
that was not consumed there, and little was consumed that was 
not produced in the home or on the home farm. The most 
important articles of export were the tobacco and the cotton 
of the South, while during the period of the embargo and the 
War of 1 81 2 there grew up considerable commerce with the 
southern and western states in the commodities manufactured 
in New England. 

Life in general was simple. Outside of the cities of the sea- 
board it could well have been characterized as rude and harsh. 
Local communities carried on the small amount of necessary 
public business with little interference on the part of the state 
and national governments. The conditions of life did not call 
for a great deal of "book-learning." Manual trades followed 
by rule of thumb, and household and farm processes un- 
changed in any essentials from those in use in the England 



336 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

of Elizabeth, constituted the occupation of the great majority 
of the population. Many of the men and most of the women 
of the period who lived outside of the cities found it no dis- 
grace and little inconvenience to be unable to read and write. 
The work to be done was mainly manual and for the occupa- 
tions of leisure time there were few books and almost no peri- 
odicals to provide recreation and self-improvement. 

In the larger centers of population the demands of trade 
and commerce called for a higher degree and a more general 
spread of education, while demands for professional training 
also stimulated the provision of the higher schools and col- 
leges. The general extension of the franchise and the removal 
of special qualifications for office holders opened the way for 
poor men of ability and industry to win office and influence 
and this in turn led to the founding of such schools as would 
serve the needs of ambitious youths. 

American Democracy Different from That Which Has 
Developed in Europe.- — In our survey of the development of 
political institutions in the older European nations, we have 
seen how in England and France political reform has followed 
the development of class-consciousness among the industrial 
workers of the factory system and how even in Prussia, al- 
though long delayed, manhood suffrage came about largely 
through the active agitation of the labor elements. What has 
taken place in those countries would be analogous to what 
would have happened in the northern states of the Union if 
there had been some insuperable barrier within one hundred 
miles of tidewater that would have made impossible any spread 
of settlement to the westward, while the population had in- 
creased and the energies of the people had run into channels 
of production and trade under factory conditions. Under such 
circumstances, the social distinctions that were common in 
early colonial society would have been continued, entrenched 
and strengthened. Our country would have had its sharply 
defined aristocracy, middle class, and proletariat, with nom- 
inal opportunities for change and improvement of social and 
economic position. Ws should, in turn, have gone through the 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 337 

progressive development of democracy within that stiff setting 
as a result of the increasing power of the laboring class to 
get what they wanted through organization and persistent, 
long-continued effort. And even after political reforms would 
have been achieved we should have had such a residuum of 
class prejudices and social distinctions as exists today in the 
Continental countries in spite of manhood suffrage and univer- 
sal free public education. 

American political conditions have been affected from the 
beginning of our national history by relatively easy economic 
conditions, which in turn have facilitated social change. The 
son of the poor man, if endowed with fair ability and stimu- 
lated by adequate ambition, has found it possible to control 
the conditions of business success or to acquire the education 
that would open to him a professional, and, if he so desired, a 
political career. Consciousness of such opportunity and the 
constant experience of its realization have caused the Ameri- 
cans to discount the initial advantage of wealth and social 
position. This factor of social and economic opportunity oper- 
ated without restraint in the earlier history of our country. It 
was the correlate of the wide-spreading frontier. Early Ameri- 
can democracy was not democracy by legislation, but by eco- 
nomic and social constitution. It was achieved almost without 
contest and, in point of time, before vested social and economic 
interests made change of mental attitudes obstinately slow to 
conform with new political forms. 

Democracy and Public Education. — The relation of this 
social factor to public education in the United Slates is highly 
important. It somewhat reverses the relationship between 
the extension of the suffrage and the provision of schools which 
has obtained in England and France, where public education 
has developed as a means of protecting society against the 
possible bad political effects of a diluted franchise. In our own 
history the franchise belonged to all adult white males as a 
right before any persistent agitation for free public schools 
began. Progress toward universal provision of public schools 
and the improvement of education has waited upon the politi- 



t i 



338 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

cal education of a great number of persons who had not en- 
joyed the opportunity of school-attendance and did not see 
that they were much worse off without school learning than 
they would have been with it, or who, if they had gone to 
school, did not appreciate the desirability of better schools for 
their children than those which they had attended themselves. 
Educational progress in our own country has taken place piece- 
meal and by the improvement of conditions in small areas. It 
has resulted from the effort of the progressive and enlightened 
members of communities to convince their neighbors of the 
desirability of some change for the better. Local changes add- 
ing up to represent the practice of a state would then receive 
permissive sanction in act of legislature, and almost universal 
achievement of a desired goal would pave the way for a 
compulsory law that was intended to bring the entire political 
unit up to an achievable minimum. When compulsory action 
taken by a state legislature was too advanced for the general 
run of local communities, the possession of immediate control 
over their lawmakers made it possible for the majority of the 
citizens to secure repeal of obnoxious school legislation at the 
next meeting of the legislature. 

As a result of this fact, the record of educational legislation 
in the states of the Union is like the course of a skipper against 
an unfavorable wind. Progress too hastily assumed was inevit- 
ably followed by the repeal or the modification of unpopular 
laws. Then, after a new period of educating the public and of or- 
ganizing support, the friends of educational improvement would 
secure the passage of laws that achieved the lost cause of ten 
years before. In the long run change has meant conspicuous 
progress in public education, but progress in education has been 
dependent on the education of the voting public in favor of 
^ better schools. 

The Federal Government and Education 

I The Constitution of the United States is silent on the subject 
'of education. Apparently the men who framed it did not con- 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 339 

sider it to be either feasible or desirable that the national 
government should be made the agency for the development 
and the administration of educational facilities. By implica- 
tion of the tenth amendment (1791) education took its place 
alongside of all other powers not specifically granted to the 
federal government as being the exclusive prerogative and in- 
terest of the several states. 

Before the Constitution had been adopted, however, the 
Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation had 
contracted obligations which led the federal government into 
important connections with public education in the states. 
A number of the individual states of the Federation had held 
conflicting claims to the great unoccupied territory lying be- 
tween the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and the Great Lakes. 
Between 1780 and 1785 these state claims were given up and 
the territory came under the jurisdiction of Congress to be 
administered as a national domain under the name of the 
Northwest Territory, 

The Ordinance of 1785. — Almost immediately after the 
close of the War of Independence, a group of New England 
military leaders approached Congress to secure favorable terms 
for the acquisition of large areas in the Northwest Territory 
for settlement and for the development of a new state. The 
original army plan of settlement fell through, but owing to 
pressure on Congress to make the land available for sale, an 
ordinance was passed in 1785 calling for the survey of the 
new territory. The land was to be laid off into townships six 
miles square and each township was to be subdivided into 
thirty-six lots or sections. The Ordinance of 1785 further pro- 
vided that the sixteenth lot of each township was to be re- 
served to the inhabitants of the township for the maintenance 
of schools. This provision of the Ordinance of 1785 is justly 
famous as the basis for the subsequent bountiful land endow- 
ments which the new states that were formed out of the na- 
tional domain have received from the national government. 
The educational clause is directly traceable to the influence of 
the New England group who were most actively interested in 



340 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

the settlement of the new territory. The generosity of Con- 
gress was motivated, in part at least, by the desire to make 
the»conditions of settlement in the new lands attractive to those 
who were leaving behind them the advantages of schools.^ 

The Ohio Company. — In 1786 a meeting was called for 
the first day of March in Boston at which was formed the 
Ohio Company. This group of New Englanders proposed to 
purchase a large tract of land in the Northwest Territory and 
elected directors to negotiate with Congress regarding terms 
of sale. The prospect of a large sale to the Ohio Company 
stimulated Congress to provide a satisfactory frame of govern- 
ment for the new territory, which was accomplished through 
the Ordinance of 1787, usually referred to as the Northwest 
Ordinance. During the time when the Northwest Ordinance 
was being formulated, Manasseh Cutler, the shrewd repre- 
sentative of the Ohio Company, was in Philadelphia and in 
close contact with the members who were active in framing it. 
There can be little doubt that the Ordinance as finally drawn 
reflected to a considerable extent the wishes of the New 
England group who were interested in the Ohio Company. 

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787. — The Northwest 
Ordinance provided that new states should eventually be 
formed out of the Northwest Territory, following a graded 
development of the powers of local government. This colonial 
policy promised the new states ultimate membership in the 
union of states on an equal footing with the older states and 
liberty to frame their own constitutions and governments. 
Thus was assured the progressive and frictionless spread of 
the American nation over a continental area. It is of interest 
to note that when the newly-organized areas would have 
reached the status of territories, the exercise of the suffrage 
was to be made dependent on the ownership of land. The 
possession of a freehold of fifty acres was to be necessary for 
the right to vote for a representative, with graded increases 
in amount of freehold for the right to serve as representative, 

^ Knight, History and Management of Land Grants for Education in 
the Northwest Territory, pp. 11-15. 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 341 

senator, and governor. If this suffrage provision was sypmto- 
matic of a restricted democracy, the provision made for the 
equal division of property among the heirs of a person dying 
intestate, reflected the intention of the founders to do away 
with the system of primogeniture with its aristocratic old- 
world implications. Six articles of compact written into the 
ordinance guaranteed freedom of religion and religious wor- 
ship, reiterated the main terms of Anglo-Saxon personal lib- 
erty under the law, and prohibited slavery in the Northwest 
Territory. In addition the third article said: "Religion, mo- 
rality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and 
the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education 
shall be forever encouraged." 

A few days after the passage of the Northwest Ordinance, 
the bill of sale to the Ohio Company of one and a half million 
acres of public land was drawn up. In accordance with the 
provisions of the Ordinance of 1785, lot number 16 of each 
township was donated by Congress for the support of schools. 
But this donation was not considered sufficiently liberal by 
Dr. Cutler, who asked for lot number 29 for the support of 
religion and "two townships near the center and of good land 
to be given by Congress for the support of a literary institution 
to be applied to the intended object by the legislature of the 
state." Congress demurred for a few days, but fearing that 
Cutler would make good his threat of buying the desired 
amount of land elsewhere from some individual state, finally 
accepted the exact terms that he proposed.^ 

The terms of Dr. Cutler's shrewd bargain with Congress on 
behalf of the Ohio Company were in the same year closely 
followed in a contract of sale between John Clark Symmes and 
the Board of Treasury. In this contract, one lot in each town- 
ship was donated for the support of schools and one for the 
support of religion, while one entire township was reserved 
for the support of a seminary of learning. 

Land Grant Policy Confirmed by National Congress. — 
Upon the admission of Ohio as a state in 1802, the grants 

* Knight, op. cit. 



342 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

of land for purposes of higher education to the Ohio Com- 
pany and the Symmes interest were confirmed to the State 
of Ohio, and the sixteenth section grant for common schools 
was given state-wide application. The four other states that 
were formed out of the Northwest Territory received the six- 
teenth section for common school purposes and two or more 
townships for the support of higher education. In 1803 an 
act of Congress extended the policy of public land endowment 
for education to the states to be formed out of the Mississippi 
Territory, the area lying between the southern border of Ten- 
nessee and the Gulf, exclusive of Florida. In 1826 the ter- 
ritory acquired through the Louisiana Purchase was brought 
by act of Congress under the same general principle. In the 
case of Illinois (1818), it was specified by Congressional act 
that three-fifths of five per cent of the total amount realized 
from the sale of public lands within the state should be ap- 
propriated to educational uses. This specific policy did not 
recur in the case of any state until about 1845. ' 

The Significance of the Land Grants. — Some of those who 
believe at present that the federal government should take a 
larger and more direct part in education in this country seem 
to be inclined to read back into these early land transactions 
certain implications of federal participation that rather go 
beyond the real facts of the case. The federal government 
made large grants out of the public domain lying within the 
states for purposes not only of education but of road con- 
struction and other forms of internal improvement. The mo- 
tive of these grants combined elements of federal benevolence, 
federal self-interest, and regard for the rights and interests of 
the territories and states that were forming on the frontiers. 
Viewed in the large, the early federal land grants for educa- 
tion appear to be the act of an open-handed Mother Bountiful. 
Seen in smaller detail, we recognize in these earlier transac- 
tions between the federal government and the inhabitants of 
the states something of the real estate promoter who desires to 
make attractive the conditions of land purchase and residence 
in a new community. The original provision for the endow- 



THE XEW FEDERAL STATE 343 

ment of public schools out of the public domain came in di- 
rect response to the proposals of prospective New England 
settlers who desired to have schools in the wilderness to take 
the place of those they were planning to leave behind them. 
The government saw in the vast national domain a means of 
paying off the national debt if settlers could be induced to 
purchase land in the distant frontier country. Its assent to 
the proposal of land endowment for schools was at least partly 
gained because it seemed likely to further the purpose of 
greater land sales and more rapid settlement. The land given 
free to the towriship for schools was in effect a bonus of a little 
less than three per cent that went with each land purchase. 

It was also recognized that the nation, as a whole, was in- 
debted to the pioneers who were creating new states in the 
wilderness at great personal expense to themselves. All were, 
in a sense, profiting at the expense of the few who braved the 
hardships and perils of pioneer life. To aid these pioneers in 
the development of the facilities and advantages of the more 
closely settled East was not only good business, but it was 
fair dealing as well. This is illustrated by the provision made 
at the time of the admission of Ohio as a state, and repeated 
thereafter in the case of new states created out of the national 
domain, namely, that five per cent of the net proceeds from the 
sale of public lands within the borders of the state in question, 
should be paid back to the state for the construction of roads 
and other internal improvements. As has been said above, in 
the case of Illinois, a part of this five per cent fund for in- 
ternal improvements was definitely devoted to educational pur- 
poses. Education was justly regarded as an internal improve- 
ment which was to the advantage not only of the home state, 
but to the nation at large as profiting with the state in its 
increase of population, wealth, and domestic commerce. 

Further light is thrown on the attitude of the national govern- 
ment in these early land endowments for education by a con- 
certed movement among the older states which were not re- 
ceiving public lands for the support of schools to participate 
in this bounty. The General Assembly of Maryland resolved 



344 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

in 182 1 that each of the United States had an equal right to 
participate in the benefit of the public lands, the common 
property of the Union, and that the states in whose favor 
Congress had not made appropriations of land for the pur- 
poses of education were entitled to such appropriations as 
would correspond in a just proportion with those that had 
been made in favor of the newer states. Four of the other 
states which had not received land grants for educational pur- 
poses endorsed through their legislatures the resolutions of 
the General Assembly of Maryland, while Massachusetts and 
New York were opposed. 

In response to the petitions of some of the older states for 
equal participation in the school endowment policy of the 
national government, the Committee of Public Lands of the 
Senate reported adversely. In that report, the following state- 
ment occurs: "In receiving donations of land for the purposes 
of promoting education in the states in which they have been 
granted, in the opinion of the Committee, a consideration has 
been rendered therefor, on the part of those states, by the in- 
creased value which the population and improvement of the 
state gave to the unsold public lands, and by the compact 
not to tax the lands of the United States at any time before 
they were sold, nor until the lapse of five years thereafter." 
The Committee further declared that while it regarded it as 
inexpedient to grant lands in the newer states to the older states 
for educational purposes, it would be just and expedient to 
grant a percentum to a reasonable extent on the amount of 
sales of public lands for the purposes of promoting education 
in such states as had not received national land grants. On 
the other hand, it recommended that in case this policy should 
be adopted, the newer states should be allowed to tax from 
the day of sale all public lands sold by the national land office. 

No action was taken by Congress on the Senate resolu- 
tion of 1 82 1, nor on a House resolution of similar tenor in 
1826. The agitation over land endowments for the older 
states for educational purposes indicates, however, that the 
question as to the relation of the federal government to the 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 345 

states in the matter of the public domain was yet an open one. 
In this instance the party to the discussion that favored a 
liberal interpretation of the federal powers was defeated. 

During the period 1789 to 1828, the federal government had 
no administrative connection with education, and no financial 
connection other than that involved in the policy of land 
endowments for common schools and institutions of higher 
learning in the states created out of the national domain. 

State Governments and Education 

When Andrew Jackson was first elected President there 
were twenty- four states in the Union. Following the date of 
the formation of the Union, Vermont, and Maine had been 
added to the New England group. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois 
had been created out of the Northwest Territory and admit- 
ted with full powers and privileges of statehood. Tennessee 
and Kentucky had been recognized as independent of their 
more easterly mother states and admitted to the sisterhood, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama had grown into important 
agricultural sections and had been organized as states during 
the second decade of the new century, while Missouri, the 
first state lying wholly beyond the Mississippi River, had been 
admitted, with much agitation concerning the matter of slavery, 
in 1 82 1. 

The New England Public School Tradition.— Of all the 
sections of the new nation, the New England states, with the 
exception of Rhode Island, alone entered the Union with a tra- 
dition of public education and with what might be called a 
system of schools. In the case of Massachusetts the authority 
of the state in the matter of education had been first expressed 
by the order of the General Court, that is to say, the legisla- 
ture, in 1642, by which parents and guardians of children were 
held responsible for the education of their children or wards to 
read and understand the principles of religion and the capital 
laws of the country. This law was followed in 1647 by a 
still more significant piece of legislation, which compelled the 



346 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

town officials to appoint teachers and establish schools. Every 
town of fifty families was to have a school in which reading and 
writing might be learned, and every town of one hundred fami- 
lies was compelled to provide a Latin grammar school, 
in both instances under penalty of a fine for non-compliance 
with the law. No specific provision was made in the law as to 
the means of supporting the schools called for, but it is known 
that it became a common practice to levy taxes on property 
for the partial or complete support of the schools. When Mas- 
sachusetts adopted its first state constitution a very specific 
statement was incorporated in it which made it the duty of the 
legislature and the magistrates to cherish education in all its 
grades. 

New Hampshire, as part of Massachusetts up to 1679, was 
under the Massachusetts laws and may be said to have fol- 
lowed the Massachusetts tradition of public education. The 
Connecticut Colony reproduced the conditions of the Massa- 
chusetts law of 1647 in its first code in 1650, and when New 
Haven Colony and Connecticut Colony were united in 1665, 
the Connecticut code was adopted by the combined colonies. 
In 1777 V'ermont declared itself an independent state and 
adopted a constitution in which the provision of a school or 
schools in every town was ordered. The constitution further 
advised the establishment of a grammar school in each county 
and of a university for the state. The first general school 
law, passed in 1782, made provision for the election of dis- 
trict officers to provide the schools made mandatory in the 
constitution. Maine as a part of Massachusetts until 1820 
was under the Massachusetts laws up to that time. Its first 
state constitution reproduced in their essentials the general edu- 
cational provisions of the Massachusetts constitution of 1780. 
The first state school law in 182 1 provided for the statewide 
establishment of schools on the district plan. Rhode Island, as 
has been said, remained an exception to the zeal for public 
education exhibited in the rest of the New England section. 

Rudimentary Nature of State Participation in Educa- 
'.ion. — The question may very well be raised as to how much 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 347 

of a state system of education the New England states pos- 
sessed during this early national period. There can be no 
doubt that public provision of some sort of schools or other 
was enforced upon the town and later the district authorities 
by laws possessing statewide application. Public schools were 
to be found widely distributed in all the New England states 
as the result of state legislation. The school law was enforced 
by the courts as other laws were enforced. But had the states 
created any special administrative machinery for the super- 
vision of education, and were they giving the local authorities 
any financial aid? 

In respect to the first question, the answer is no. In 1810, 
Connecticut provided for a Commissioner of the School Fund, 
but his duties were entirely fiscal. In 1827, Vermont made 
the Secretary of State an ex officio school officer to whom the 
towns were compelled to report school statistics. In the same 
year a board of five Commissioners of Public Schools was 
created with certain duties connected with the selection of 
textbooks and with the function of recommending new educa- 
tional laws to the legislature. This development of a super- 
visory body in V^ermont was a flash in the pan, for in 1833 
the Board of Commissioners was legislated out of existence, 
/with the trivial exceptions noted above, the New England 
^ states made no provision during the period under discussion 
for the supervision by state educational officers of the efforts of 
the local authorities, j 

With respect to the matter of financial aid on the part of 
the state to the local authorities, the situation presents more 
variety. New Hampshire as early as 1789 began to levy a state 
tax for educational purposes in a ratio to the town school 
taxes of one to five. As time went on, however, the ratio of 
the state to the local tax decreased. In 1821 New Hampshire 
created a Literary Fund arising out of a tax on banks, which 
was distributed in 1828 to the towns for common school pur- 
poses. This Literary Fund should not be confused with the 
permanent Common School Fund, now known as the Institute 
Fund, which was begun in 1867. Massachusetts had no school 



348 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

fund before 1839, nor did it levy a state tax for school sup- 
port. Maine and Rhode Island made the beginning of such 
funds in 1828. Connecticut in 1795 established a permanent 
school fund out of the sum realized on the sale of the Western 
Reserve lands in northern Ohio. The amount of this fund 
was almost one and three-quarter million dollars in 1825, and 
between 1810 and 1825 the average annual amount of in- 
terest on the fund paid to local authorities for the support of 
schools was over fifty thousand dollars. 

By way of summary it may be said of the New England 
states, Rhode Island excepted, that they had state laws call- 
ing for the maintenance of schools by local authorities every- 
where throughout the several states. There were, however, 
no special state administrative officers provided to see that the 
laws were carried out or to stimulate educational advance- 
ment. Neither was there, with the exception of the small 
state tax for school purposes in New Hampshire and the 
Literary Fund in the same state, first distributed in 1828, any 
system of state aid to the local authorities out of current 
resources. Connecticut alone of the New England states had 
a permanent school fund that actually paid money during 
this early period to local authorities for the support of 
schools. 

Educational Administration in New York. — Of all the 
states New York during this early period made greatest prog- 
ress toward the creation of a state system of educational ad- 
ministration. As early as 1784 the legislature provided for a 
Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York 
to have oversight and control of higher and secondary educa- 
tion. In 1787, the Board of Regents was reconstituted, but 
retained practically the same functions which it had been given 
by the law of 1784 Under the new act, the Board was to 
consist of twenty-one members and it was to have exclusive 
control of all higher and secondary schools in the state. All 
such institutions were to be dependent upon the Board of 
Regents for their charters and were to be subject to its rules 
and regulations. 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 349 

In 181 2 New York created the oflice of State Superintendent 
of Common Schools, who was to be independent of the State 
Board of Regents and whose duties were exclusively to be 
connected with elementary education. This divided form of 
educational administration in New York State continued 
throughout the nineteenth century. In 1821, the office of State 
Superintendent of Common Schools was abolished, and the 
Secretary of State was made ex officio responsible for the duties 
of that office. 

Abortive Development of State Systems in Georgia 
and Michigan. — Much the same form of state administration 
as that followed in New York was adopted in Georgia and the 
Territory of Michigan. The first state constitution of Georgia 
(1777) called for the establishment of schools in each county 
to be supported at the general expense of the state as the 
legislature should thereafter point out. In 1783 the state 
legislature chartered three academies and gave each an en- 
dowment of land and at the same time provided for the endow- 
ment in land of free schools of the county academy type in 
the remaining counties. Two years later the county acade- 
mies were formed into an administrative system under the 
Senate of the State University created in 1784. The uni- 
versity began operations tardily and never exerted a great 
deal of control over the schools of the state. 

The Territory of Michigan in 181 7 created a Catholepiste- 
miad, or University of Michigania, which was to serve the 
dual purpose of higher institution of learning and administra- 
tive system. The faculty of the University was given com- 
plete power over the schools of all grades to be established in 
the state. Some changes in the organization of the Univer- 
sity occurred in 1821, but the teaching institution was not or- 
ganized until 1837. Meanwhile, in 1827, a new school law 
had been passed which provided for a system of common 
schools independent of the control of the University. 

As the beginnings of the state systems of administration 
in Georgia and Michigan were largely abortive, it may be said 
that during this early period New York State alone showed a 



350 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

significant start in the direction of comprehensive and influ- 
ential state control of public education. 

Of the remaining states we find that Maryland created the 
office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1826 
and that Virginia provided in 181 5 for a State Board with 
the exclusive function of looking after the Literary Fund. 

State Financial Aid. — The absence of administrative ma- 
chinery does not imply, however, a complete absence of interest 
and activity in educational affairs on the part of the various 
state governments. Before the end of the third decade of 
the nineteenth century, practically all the older states had 
created permanent literary or school funds, the income of which 
was designed to aid local educational effort. In many cases 
this fund had its origin in sales of state lands. Other sources, 
of income out of which the fund was increased were fines, 
licenses, special taxes, and forfeitures and escheats of various 
sorts. Several of the states organized lotteries or permitted 
lotteries in the interest of permanent funds or of current costs 
of education. New York State in 1795 began the annual 
distribution of $100,000 to the towns of the state for the 
support of the schools. This policy was temporarily discon- 
tinued at the end of five years, but in 181 2 the state again 
began a policy of aid for local effort through the distribution 
of the interest on the State School Fund. Pennsylvania pur- 
sued a policy of granting state aid to colleges and academies 
during this period, ostensibly in return for the free instruction 
of a designated number of poor children. Maryland also ex- 
tended the aid of the state's treasury to higher education. 
For a short time the state gave annual sums in support of two 
colleges and five academies. Later the system of aid was 
extended to assist academies in each county in the state. 
South Carolina following 181 1 provided aid to each school dis- 
trict for the education of poor children. Georgia, in addition 
to making specific money contributions, was generous with her 
unsold land, setting aside a large area for the support of 
academies, of which^ as in the case of Maryland, there was 
eventually to be one in each county that would profit by 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 351 

the state's county. The policy of land endowment was also 
followed by Kentucky. Louisiana made a money contri- 
bution following 181 1 for buildings and annual cost of main- 
tenance for the purpose of erecting an academy in each parish. 
The aid of that state was extended in 1827 to the common 
schools, at which time a law was passed which called for the 
donation on the part of the state of the sum of $2.62^ a 
month for each pupil in parish schools. In return the parish 
was to receive for tuition free of charge all indigent children. 
When the total of the state contributions to local educational 
expenditures during this period is summed up, in the light of 
later developments, it is very small. 

No Thought of the State as a Unit for Educational 
Administration. — The absence of any thought during this 
early period of the state as a unit for educational administra- 
tion is shown in the wording of the grants of the Congres- 
sional school sections. The sixteenth section of each township 
in the case of all states participating in the grant up to the 
admission of Illinois in 1818 was granted to the inhabitants of 
the township for the use of schools. When Illinois was ad- 
mitted the grant was changed to read "to the State, for the use 
of the inhabitants of such township for the use of schools." 
While the grant to Alabama followed the earlier formula the 
grants to Missouri and Arkansas followed the form used in the 
case of Illinois. The wording of the enabling acts in all these 
cases, however, indicates that education was being thought of 
as a predominantly local affair. The government of the United 
States in conferring its bounty upon the inhabitants of the 
states passed over the head of the state governments and made 
its gift as directly as possible to the people of the township. 
Each township was recognized as having special and definite 
rights to its own sixteenth section for its own use and enjoy- 
ment. 

Local Education Authorities 

New England Practice. — Early school control in Massa- 
chusetts and in the New England states generally, was vested 



352 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

in the town. At first this control was exercised in town meet- 
ing by the inhabitants, and no differentiation of educational 
office or function was provided for. The local ministers might 
be and usually were empowered to certify to the moral and 
educational fitness of prospective teachers. The evolution of 
specialized school authorities with specific functions was slow 
and followed no regular order. The first development away 
from the actual control of school affairs by all the citizens in 
town meeting was in the assumption by the selectmen of the 
functions connected with education. Another frequently fol- 
lowed pathway to specialized powers and the creation of spe- 
cial local authorities lay through the appointment of special 
annual or standing committees to appoint teachers, inspect 
schools, lay off new school districts, or to perform some other 
specific duty. The records show that there was little uniform- 
ity or continuity in the practices of the Massachusetts towns 
in this respect. The fact is that by 1789 many towns of 
Massachusetts had come largely to depend on school com- 
mittees to perform many of the important duties formerly 
looked after by the selectmen of the town meeting. 

The Massachusetts Law of 1789 greatly stimulated the de- 
velopment of school committees through its legal recognition 
of what had been up to that time an informal function sanc- 
tioned only by custom and general agreement. By this law 
responsibility for the certification of teachers and the inspec- 
tion of schools was laid upon the selectmen of the town or 
districts. The law of 1789 legalized the division of the town 
or district. In both functions the local minister or ministers 
were to assist the selectmen or the school committee. This 
law made permissive the delegation of school functions to a 
special committee. 

The Evolution of the District System. — The Law of 1789 
is important in the history of the school system of IMassachu- 
setts not only for its recognition of the school committee as a 
special authority, but perhaps more so for the tendency toward 
decentralization in school affairs which it recognized and 
legalized. As has been said, the original local authority for 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 353 

school affairs in Massachusetts was the town. Originally each 
town had had its church and school as the center of the town 
life. However, as settlement began to spread beyond the orig- 
inal village that was the official center and capital of the 
town, the unity of town life was disturbed and finally lost. 
The inhabitants who lived farther away from the town church 
and school found it difficult and finally impossible to attend 
church or have their children attend school. As the town was 
the unit of support of both these institutions the inhabitants 
who lived in outlying sections found themselves called on to 
pay for the support of a pastor whose ministrations they could 
not enjoy and of schools which their children could not avail 
themselves of. The result of this situation was the splitting 
up of the town into districts for various purposes, and the 
distribution among these smaller subdivisions of functions that 
had previously been performed by the town as a unit. In the 
case of the schools it became common for the town school to be 
maintained for part of the year in several localities in rota- 
tion so that the advantages of the school supported by all 
might be enjoyed by all for at least a fraction of the full 
time of its maintenance. Another tendency seen was for the 
town to maintain at the center a school for the entire year and 
to maintain inferior schools for shorter terms in the outlying 
districts. The law of 1789 legalized the division of the town 
into school districts each with its own school. A law passed in 
1800 gave the inhabitants of the school districts the right to 
hold district school meetings to determine upon sites for school 
buildings and to tax themselves for the erection of school 
premises and the maintenance of schools. In 181 7 the districts 
were made legal corporations with full responsibility and 
power before the law. In 1827 the final step in the develop- 
ment of the school district was taken when all towns which 
were divided into school districts were obliged to choose a 
prudential committee of one for each district who should have 
responsibility for the school property and the power to select 
and appoint the teacher for the district. 

The School District as a Response to Population Con- 



354 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 17S9 

ditions. — The disintegration of the town in Massachusetts as 
the local authority for education and the evolution of the school 
district in its place, is a significant development in the history 
of American education. It is symptomatic of the type of 
social and political organization which grew out of the spread 
of population into the back country. Given a tradition of 
public education and a desire on the part of people to have 
schools, the natural tendency under conditions of incomplete 
or sparse settlement, was for the neighborhood to desire to 
control its own school affairs. The" school district is the 
smallest possible civil unit for the maintenance of a school. 
In point of numbers served and in the matter of organization, 
it is the nearest approach to a purely voluntary system ac- 
cording to which a group of private persons maintain a school 
for their own children. A little settlement of families, homog- 
eneous in their needs and standards, could be formed into a 
district and have a school, however poor it might be, without 
waiting for neighboring settlements, composing with it the 
next larger civil district, to come to the same desire of having 
their children instructed in the three R's. The evolution of 
the district as the ultimate unit of school maintenance and 
control in Massachusetts took place as an accompaniment of 
the spread of population into the more remote corners of the 
older towns and into theretofore unsettled parts of the state. 
The same movement of population was taking place throughout 
all the New England states during the same period, and when 
the New England settlers poured over into New York and on 
beyond into the Northwest Territory, they carried with them 
the system of local support and management of schools which 
had served under the same pioneer conditions in the home 
states. The district system has had almost universal appli- 
cation in the newer states of the west under conditions of in- 
complete settlement. 

The District System in the Other New England States. 
— As has been said above, the early national period of our his- 
tory saw the development of the district system in the other 
New England states besides Massachusetts. New Hampshire 



THE NEW FEDERAE STATE 355 

legalized the district system, giving full corporate and educa- 
tional powers to the district school trustees, in 1829. The 
law of 1766 in Connecticut recognized the right of towns and 
parishes to subdivide into school districts. By a law of 1794 
school districts were allowed to tax themselves for the building 
of school-houses and by a law of 1798 "school societies" were 
authorized to organize as districts. The culmination of the 
development toward the district system in Connecticut occurred 
in 1839 when the district was made a body corporate with full 
control of its school. Vermont legalized the district system in 
1782. In 1827 there was a law passed which attempted to 
restore the town control of the school, but this measure was 
repealed in 1833, and nothing further in that direction was at- 
tempted for a dozen years thereafter. In Maine a law passed 
in 182 1 made the districts bodies corporate with power to 
levy taxes. In that state, however, the control of the schools 
on the part of the town officials was never completely relaxed. 

Local Authorities Shaped by Federal Land Grants. — 
The development of local education authorities in the states 
which profited by the federal grant of the sixteenth section in 
each township was inl!uenced by the lerms of the grant. Ohio 
in 1806 and 1810 authorized the organization of any school 
township in which there were twenty voters. Three township 
trustees and a treasurer to look after the school land were to 
be elected. At the same time the townships were to be divided 
into school districts and their share of the school fund was to 
be paid directly to the district. In 1825 the trustees of the 
civil township were ordered by the law to organize school dis- 
tricts in the township. In 183 1 the school district officers 
were made a body corporate. Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and 
Wisconsin followed the course taken in Ohio without signifi- 
cant deviation, while the practice in Louisiana, Mississippi, 
Missouri, and Arkansas may be roughly assimilated to the same 
group. 

Local Authorities in New York. — New York State was 
without local authorities for education until they were pro- 
vided for in the Law of 1795. Town school committees were 



356 NATIONALISIM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

at that time created to supervise the schools and apportion the 
state grants. At the same time the towns were to be divided 
into school districts with two or more tnistees. By the Law of 
1795 the town school committee was empowered to withhold 
the state grant unless the teacher employed in a given district 
was satisfactory to the town committee. However, in case 
the district was willing to forfeit its share of the state grant, 
it was altogether independent of the town committee. Legisla- 
tion of 181 2 and 1 814 further developed the district organiza- 
tion while at the same time it established town educational 
authorities to inspect schools and to examine and license teach- 
ers. It is thus seen in the case of New York that the decen- 
tralization attendant upon the full district system was moder- 
ated at an early date by legislation. 

Local Authorities in Other States. — Among the remain- 
ing states during this early national period, there were some 
that assigned no educational functions to any local authority; 
there were some that assigned the duty of looking after the 
education of pauper children to existing local authorities with 
general functions; and there were at least two that created 
special local authorities to supervise the education of pauper 
children. 

Summary. — By way of summary of the educational con- 
ditions in the several states of the Union during the early na- 
tional period, it may be said that the New England states, 
excepting Rhode Island, had long had a tradition of public 
education. True enough the schools were poor in quality, and 
interest in education during this period was at a low ebb, 
but schools there were and the policy of public maintenance 
was deepseated and endured through all vicissitudes. New 
York State early legislated itself into a favorable condition 
with respect to the public provision of schools. Pennsylvania, 
New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, and South 
Carolina among the original states made provision for the edu- 
cation of pauper children at public expense in schools main- 
tained by private initiative. None of these last-named states 
compelled the maintenance of schools by any local authority 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 357 

or smaller civil unit, while practically all of them exhibited 
interest in education to greater or less degree by some form 
of state grant for elementary or secondary schools. 

The new states exhibited in their education practices the 
influence of the older states which furnished the majority of 
their settlers. The people who settled in Tennessee and Ken- 
tucky largely came from the hill country of Virginia and North 
Carolina and they brought with them the hands-off school 
policy which had been followed in the mother states. Th2 
early settlers in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were largely from 
the older southern states or from Kentucky and Tennessee, 
while in the twenties and thirties a strong New England influx 
began. The increase in numbers of New England immigrants, 
aided by the removal of southern born families to Missouri and 
other frontier slave states during and after the twenties, turned 
the political majorities in favor of the New England stock or 
its descendants. A close relationship exists between these sta- 
tistics of population and the progress of education in Ohio, 
Indiana, and Illinois. As long as the stock derived from the 
states in which there was no state action in regard to educa- 
tion predominated, these states did not make any significant 
progress in the direction of universally provided public schools. 
The change in sentiment is indicated in legislation which was 
enacted after the close of the early national period. The 
southern frontier states made no significant progress in edu- 
cation during this period both because of conditions that were 
generally unfavorable to the maintenance of schools and^ be- 
cause of the lack of a common school tradition in the states 
in which their inhabitants were reared. 

The Elementary School. — The objective of the elementary 
schools during the early national period was to make the 
children able to read and write and to give them the command 
of arithmetic that was necessary for the business transactions 
of everyday life. Shortly after the Revolution, there had be- 
gun a rapid change from the exclusively religious subject- 
matter of the Colonial days. Webster's blue backed speller, 
first published in 1783, displaced the New^ England Printer as 



358 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

the universal text book for reading and spelling, and a consid- 
erable number of other collections of literary materials soon 
came to enjoy wide popularity. At about the same time 
arithmetic gained great vogue as a subject of elementary 
school instruction. With the publication of Colburn's First 
Lessons in Arithmetic in 182 1, the place of arithmetic, espe- 
cially "mental arithmetic," in the schools was firmly in- 
trenched. The three R's — "readin', ritin', and 'rithmetic" — 
were the staple foods of early American intellectual nurture. 
By the end of the early national period, grammar had come 
to be recognized as a standard subject in the better organized 
elementary schools that had higher grades. Geography was 
also taught in the same. Penmanship was given a place in 
the work of the school day, and in some of the city schools 
bookkeeping was offered. Needlework was very generally 
taught to girls. History had hardly more than appeared as 
an elementary school subject. 

As one examines the text books of this early period, he is 
struck with the universal character of their subject-matter. 
There were, it is true, a few books that reflected a definite 
American feeling, — particularly Noah Webster's Second Part, 
a Grammatical Institute; but in general there was a com- 
plete absence of anything that could be characterized as nar- 
rowly nationalistic. Webster stated on the title page of the 
''Second Part," that it was his purpose in compiHng the book 
to be "attentive to the political interest of America." In 
that interest he included a number of Revolutionary War ora- 
tions in which bitter feeling was expressed against Great 
Britain. With this exception, however, the reade.rs of the 
period might have been used without offense in England or 
any other English speaking country. Virtues that possess uni- 
versal validity were the main burden of the selections. Politi- 
cal freedom and justice and good personal virtues were praised 
in excerpts from classical as well as from English and Ameri- 
can works. One is constantly reminded in going through these 
early books of the close dependence of early American culture 
upon that of England. Burke, Pitt, 'Johnson, Addison, and 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 359 

Goldsmith were no less a part of the American tradition than 
were Patrick Henry, John Adams, Fisher Ames, Benjamin 
Franklin, and George Washington. 

The early national period shows no conception of education 
as a means of creating a definite political culture by means of 
the schools. Such is most certainly the case with reference to 
practice. There was, as we have seen, no concerted action on 
the part of any central authorities to accomplish such an objec- 
tive, because such authorities did not exist. And as far as the 
local efforts were concerned, they related to teaching the chil- 
dren to read, write, and figure. The curriculum was universal 
in tone even as the spelling of words and the doing of sums 
are universal. It was un-national rather than international. It 
reflected a state of political development that preceded any 
strong consciousness of nationalit3^ 

It might be added that the material side of elementary edu- 
cation in those early days was pathetically crude and inade- 
quate. The buildings and the equipment were ugly, uncom- 
fortable, unsanitary, and inefficient for their purpose. This 
was true in the cities as well as in the villages and in the 
open country. 

As far as the teachers are concerned, they were like the 
general run of those who taught school in all Western countries 
before the state turned to education to make it a tool for 
creating citizens. Barely possessed of the limited informa- 
tion they were expected to pass on to the pupils and conscious 
of no superior methods of instruction, they taught the children 
one by one through the time honored method of showing or 
telling followed by the pupils' practice. Harsh discipline, if 
it succeeded at all, secured inactivity when the child was 
otherwise out of employment. 

The Decline of the Town Grammar School. — In the 
colonial days in New England, the town grammar school was 
an acknowledged institution. The law of 1647 made manda- 
tory upon all Massachusetts towns of one hundred families, 
the maintenance of a grammar school in which the classics 
should be taught. A similar law was passed in colonial Can- 



36o NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

necticut. The eighteenth century was a severe period in New 
England history as the result of Indian and other wars, and 
its latter part saw great economic distress resulting from the 
disordered financial conditions that followed the Revolutionary 
War. The development of the district system in New Eng- 
land further undermined the resources of the towns for main- 
taining public secondary schools. The law of 1789 in Massa- 
chusetts freed from the obligation over half the towns which 
under the previous laws were expected to maintain such schools. 
The failure of the one hundred and ten towns to live up to 
the law of 1789 in this particular is indicated by the fact that 
a new law passed in 1824 exempted all but seven towns, namely, 
the commercial towns of the state, from all obligation to main- 
tain a Latin grammar school. 

Change in the Curriculum of the Latin Grammar 
School. — Perhaps more significant than the relaxation of the 
requirement that towns should maintain grammar schools is 
the fact that the grammar schools had ceased to give predom- 
inant attention to the classics and had filled up their courses of 
study with practical subjects that led into business or other 
professional life than the ministry. The Boston Latin Gram- 
mar School in 1827 was offering, in addition to Latin and 
Greek, reading, grammar, geography, arithmetic, algebra, 
geometry, the United States Constitution, history, composition, 
declamation, forensics, trigonometry, and chronology.' The 
change from the narrow classical curriculum of early colonial 
days that prepared the prospective minister or scholar for 
Harvard College, had gadually taken place in response to the 
demand of the larger public who supported the grammar school, 
and whose sons were not going to follow learned careers. By 
the end of the early national period, the few Latin grammar 
schools that had survived in New England were different from 
the newer secondary school, the academy, only in respect to 
the point of public maintenance. 

The Academy. — The academy may be described as the 
typical secondary school in the United States during the first 

^ See Inglis, The Rise of the High School in Massachusetts, p. 21. 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 361 

seventy-five years of our national life. It was well adapted to 
the conditions of sparse population, small financial resources, 
and loose political organization of that early day. Wherever 
there was promise of a clientele or the desire of a sufficient 
group of persons for superior educational advantages for their 
children, an academy might be established by a private party 
as a business venture, or by a religious denomination as a 
work of grace, or by a community as a joint undertaking. 
Many academies were intended to serve mainly local needs, but, 
on the other hand, some academies served large areas and 
drew students from all over the United States. An important 
feature of the work of the academy was its provision for the 
education of girls. 

The curriculum and the organization of the academies were 
extremely flexible. There might be one teacher or many. 
The student might enter upon his studies when he was able and 
quit when he pleased. He might study any or all of the sub- 
jects offered. The curriculum of an academy might be mainly 
classical, or it might be made up almost entirely of the Eng- 
lish and practical branches that had definite economic value 
for the times. The academy was not only a school that pre- 
pared pupils for college entrance, but it was a school that 
proposed to give its students a finished higher education. For 
example, Leicester Academy in 1824 was offering its students, 
besides the traditional instruction in Latin and Greek, courses 
in grammar, geography, arithmetic, algebra, and geometry, as 
well as in history, logic, rhetoric, surveying, astronomy, liter- 
ary criticism, psychology, and philosophy. F'rench was added 
in 1828.' V^iewed in the full scope of such a curriculum, the 
academy was in reality a freer, more modern kind of college, 
and the student who persisted long in .such studies could 
reasonably be considered an educated man for the times. 

As has been said, the flexibility of the academy in respect 
to studies and administration made it an institution adapted or 
adaptable to the conditions of those early days. Its utility is 
manifested by its rapid spread over the entire nation, from New 

^See Inglis, The Rise of the High School in Massachusetts, p. 21. 



362 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

England to the Gulf of Mexico, and from Philadelphia to the 
frontier states of the West. At a time when public men were 
conscious of the need for advanced education, but had not yet 
come to believe in the obligation of the state to furnish the 
means of education, the academies were frequently aided by 
the state legislatures out of the common treasury. Some of 
the states planned statewide systems of academies with at 
least one such school in every county profiting by the aid of 
the state. At a time before the distinction between public 
and private education had taken on political significance, public 
funds were frequently used to aid private academies, even those 
maintained by religious denominations. At a time when 
educational destitution was the common condition, public 
authorities were favorable to any institution that promised the 
increase of educational facilities. 

Higher Education. — The early colonial colleges. Harvard, 
William and Mary, and Yale, had been founded by the colonial 
governments as public institutions. The Massachusetts Con- 
stitution of 1780 made specific provision for the continuance 
of the state's connection with and interest in Harvard College. 
It was only following out precedent that the New Englanders 
who composed the Ohio Company should request of Congress 
the free gift of land for a university. The grant to that com- 
pany of two full townships for the purpose of maintaining a 
university was the beginning of a policy that has been followed 
ever since in the case of new states created out of the public 
domain. As the result of that action in the case of Ohio, 
induced largely no doubt by the shrewd persistence of 
Manasseh Cutler, the new states have been endowed with land 
for universities, which in due time have been created, manned 
with instructors, and opened to students. Some of the older 
states also during the early national period created state uni- 
versities. 

' Higher education has never, however, been a state monopoly 
in the United States. The many colleges that resulted from 
religious zeal during the colonial and post-Revolution days, 
were protected in their rights by the decision in the Dart- 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 363 

mouth College Case in 18 19, which placed the charters of 
private"'coTleges 'Beyohd impairment by act of legislature. 
The importance of this decision for intellectual freedom can 
hardly be overestimated. It has insured the independence 
of public opinion at its highest source. No state authority 
has been able to control political and economic thought through 
the possession of a stranglehold upon the professors or the 
students in colleges and universities. No more have private 
individuals been compelled to send their children to higher 
institutions of learning in which doctrines which they con- 
sidered noxious and unsound were bolstered up by the au- 
thority of the state. That does not mean that within any 
institution a teacher has been free to teach anything he might 
happen to believe, for there has been in our country a tendency 
for individual colleges to control rather narrowly the instruc- 
tion given within their classrooms and to censor the personal 
conduct of teachers and students according to a rigid standard. 
Such "Lehr-und-Lern-freiheit" as has existed in our country 
has come about rather through the multiplicity of educational 
foundations with their wide variety of purposes and beliefs. 
Whom the denominational college has cast out for utterances 
at variance with its canon some state college or university has 
welcomed for his vigorous intellect; and whom the state uni- 
versity has cast out for unacceptable political or economic 
teachings, some private institution has gathered to its bosom 
with honor and affection. The result has been a degree of 
intellectual independence and freedom, when the nation as a 
whole is considered, that has been of inestimable value in the 
development of science and the enrichment of pubHc life. 

Churches and Education. — To speak of the Church in 
American education would be anomalous, for there has been 
no single dominating religious organization in our country, 
taken as a whole, at any time in its history. The early New 
England Colonies, except Rhode Island, were Congregational, 
and in them the connection between government and church 
was so close that the terms state-church and church-state 
might be used interchangeably to describe it. Seven of the 



364 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

Colonies accepted the Anglican as the state church. Maryland 
was settled by Catholics, but practiced religious toleration. 
Pennsylvania was also open to settlers of all faiths. By the 
close of the colonial period, even in New England, religious 
unity was badly disturbed by the growth of independent de- 
nominations, and by the end of the early national period the 
connection between church and state had been dissolved 
(1833). The state of Virginia, largely through the efforts of 
Thomas Jefferson, in 1776 established the principle of religious 
freedom. If in the separate states diversity of faith was tend- 
ing to the elimination of religious restrictions and the separa- 
tion of the civil and the ecclesiastical organizations, it was but 
logical that the union of all these states should be even less 
able or willing to establish a state church. The Federal Con- 
stitution declared against any sort of religious test or qualifi- 
cation for federal office, guaranteed religious freedom to all, 
and declared against the establishment of a state religion by 
Congress. 

In New England almost up to the time of Horace Mann, 
the civil control of education meant control by the Congre- 
gational Church, with large influence residing in the local 
pastors. In all the other states, much of the private initiative 
that operated in the provision of school was exhibited by reli- 
gious organizations. This was particularly true of the chari- 
table associations which attempted during this period to estab- 
lish schools in the large cities of the eastern coast. 

During this early period the religious question in education 
was in no sense acute. The various states frequently made 
contributions to schools maintained by religious bodies, and 
it was a very common thing indeed for the civil authorities in 
the states which pretended to give free education only to 
pauper children, to pay the tuition of such children in denomi- 
national schools. The reading of the Bible in the schools as a 
part of the stated school exercises was practically universal 
and caused no objection to be raised, because however much, 
or little, the various sects might differ in point of doctrine, the 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE ,365 

King James version of the Scriptures was their common sacred 
book. 

Philanthropic School Societies. — The early national period 
was the flowering time of philanthropic effort in American edu- 
cation. The same motives operated and to a considerable 
degree the same methods were followed here as in England and 
France in the same epoch. Before the Revolutionary War, 
English charitable associations had maintained schools in the 
Colonies, and when independence was declared, native asso- 
ciations were in some cases formed to take up this work. 
The Sunday School movement (see p. 236!) had an early de- 
velopment in the United States. This movement was followed 
in point of time by the organization of voluntary associations 
for the free education of poor children in the cities, which 
closely resembled the British and Foreign School Society in 
England (see p. 237). Associations of philanthropic citizens 
were formed to provide through annual subscriptions the 
means of education for the neglected children of the eastern 
commercial cities who otherwise would have been without either 
moral guidance or schooling. Like the English prototype, these 
societies in general made use of the monitorial system of in- 
struction, which made it possible for large numbers of children 
to be given what was for that time a commendable amount of 
schooling at small cost. The organization of such school 
societies became very general in the cities of many of the 
states in which the provision of education was not secured by 
state law, that is to say, outside of New England, with the 
exception of Rhode Island. In some cases these societies 
benefited by state aid 

The importance of philanthropic school societies in the his- 
tory of American education is out of all proportion to the 
meager treatment here accorded their labors. They arose in 
response to a social situation that challenged public respon- 
sibility. If this responsibility was first accepted by private 
individuals formed into educational societies, it remained no 
less a public concern. The years of continuous effort on the 



366 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

part of the philanthropic societies were influential in forming 
the habit of supporting popular schools and tended to make 
education for all children seem natural and necessary. As the 
transition from strictly private initiative in education to uni- 
versal public provision of schools was mediated through 
the activities of the voluntary associations, the movement has 
large significance in the evolution of a public school system. 
Education during the First Thirty Years of the 
Nation's Life. — By way of summary of educational develop- 
ments up to about 1830, it may be said that the provision of 
schools had not yet been accepted in the United States as a 
public obligation. It is true that in the New England states 
schools were required to be maintained by law, but even there 
the schools had little vitality. In the greater part of the 
United States, the education of children was provided for by 
parents as their personal concern or by church groups or by 
philanthropic organizations. To a considerable extent, the 
public had acknowledged its obligation to give the rudiments 
of a literary education to the children of parents who were on 
the public charge or otherwise unable to pay for the schooling 
of their children. Where the schools were a quasi-public insti- 
tution, the imposition and collection of "rate bills" placed the 
burden of educating their children in actuality upon parents. 
The bounty of the state governments was beginning, in an 
experimental way, to be extended in the aid of local educational 
effort, but such aid was inconsiderable and altogether out of 
proportion to the educational destitution of the times. In the 
larger cities the efforts of philanthropic school societies, through 
the application of the Lancasterian system of instruction, were 
supplying a limited type of elementary education to large num- 
bers of children and thus preparing the way for the ultimate 
recognition of the obligation and the feasibility of universal 
public schools. The control exercised over the schools, where 
schools were in existence, by the local authorities was absolute. 
Each community had the kind of school which it was able to 
rise to in imagination as based upon a poor experience and 
which it was able and willing to pay for. In short, it may be 



THE NEW FEDERAL STATE 367 

said that "the Fathers," up to the time of Andrew Jackson's 
first term as president, had not seriously considered nor prac- 
tically applied the conception of public education as a means 
of creating a national culture or of preparing the large body 
of citizen-voters for the responsible functions of citizenship 
in a democratic state. 



ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical Background. — Beard and Beard, History of 
the United States; West, History of the American People; Johnson, 
Union and Democracy; Fiske, The Critical Period of American History. 

Education Sources. — Considerable source material for the period 
is to be found in Cubberley and Elliott, State and County School Ad- 
ministration, Source Book. 

Secondary Accounts. — Cubberley, Public Education in the United 
States; Brown, The Making of Our Middle Schools; Inglis, The Rise 
of the High School in Massachusetts; Reigart, The Lancasterian System 
of Instruction in the Schools of New York City; Suzzallo, The Rise of 
Local School Supervision in Massachusetts; Updegraff, The Origin of 
the Moving School in Massachusetts. 



CHAPTER XVI 
SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 

The Triumph of Sectionalism. — The larger issues which 
the unlimited American electorate was called upon to decide 
during the period between Jackson and Lincoln, were prac- 
tically all connected more or less closely with the conflicting 
interests of the sections which composed the country. The 
tariff, the National Bank, slavery, territorial expansion, inter- 
nal improvements, land policies, — all these were issues that had 
their origin in the varying and opposing interests of East or 
South or West. For there were really three countries living 
under the same flag and owning to the same fundamental con- 
stitution. When we consider how divergent were the interests 
of the South from those of the East and the interests of both 
those sections from the interests of the West, one is not sur- 
prised that during this period political separation of the sec- 
tions was frequently and in all seriousness proposed and 
finally attempted in 1861. 

The East. — Very slowly during the first two decades of the 
nineteenth century, but with pronounced acceleration there- 
after, the economic life of the New England and the Middle 
States was transformed through the development of the fac- 
tory system of manufacture. The first cotton mill in the 
United States was built in 1789 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. 
As late as 1803 there were only four cotton mills in the coun- 
try and in 1808 only fifteen. With the passage of the Embargo 
Act (1807) and the cutting off of the supply of foreign goods, 
the development not only of cotton and woolen mills, but of 
other kinds of factories went on apace in order to meet the 
demands of the home markets for commodities formerly im- 
ported from abroad. The number of spindles in cotton fac- 

368 



SECTIONALISM AXD DKMOrRACY (182S-1861) 369 

tories increased from 4500 in 1805 to 130,000 in 181 5, and 
while the increase in cotton manufacturing was larger than 
in any other line of factory production, similar and pronounced 
gains in manufacturing of many lines were made. The great 
spread of the factory system of production, however, took 
place in the twenties and the thirties. By the end of that time 
flourishing towns had grown up on the streams of New England 
and the Middle States and the population of the open country 
in those parts was moving to the towns to take their places in 
the new industrial armies. From the twenties to the present 
there has been a steady gain of the city dwelling population 
as opposed to those who lived in towns of less than 8000 
inhabitants or in villages and the open country. By i860 
there were 141 cities of over 8000 population, which con- 
tained 12.5 per cent of the total population of the country. 
These cities with their factory industries and their factory 
population were largely in New England, New York, New 
Jersey, and Pennsylvania. There were factories scattered here 
and there throughout the entire country, particularly the Mid- 
dle West and the Lake region, but the industrial life of the 
country was overwhelmingly concentrated in the northern and 
eastern states. 

The eastern cities were also the gateways of commerce. 
Merchants of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore 
controlled the exchange of goods between the LTnited States 
and foreign lands. These towns were also the centers of 
capital, a great preponderance of the banking resources of 
the country being concentrated in them. Seated in their cita- 
dels of trade and making common cause with one another, the 
eastern bankers, merchants, and manufacturers took their toll 
of all the goods that passed from the West or the South to 
Europe; or that came from foreign shores to serve the wants 
of southern planter or western farmer. The interests of the 
working population in this section either were bound up with 
those of their masters or were made to seem so, since steady 
work and wages depended upon the general prosperity of the 
business and the profits of the capitalist. Naturally the manu- 



370 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

facturing section desired a high tariff on finished goods to 
protect its wares from foreign competition. 

The South. — The South during this period remained pre- 
dominantly agricultural and its agriculture was practically 
limited to the production of a few staple crops. Cotton was 
king. The other important crops were tobacco, rice and sugar. 
For its manufactured goods it was dependent upon the East 
or upon foreign countries. For grain and meat and other 
staples of diet it was dependent on the West. 

The peculiar economic situation in the South which has just 
been described had a history no less definite than had the 
growth of the East into a predominantly manufacturing and 
capitalistic section. Before the invention of the cotton gin 
in 1793, the only cotton that could be profitably grown was 
the long staple or sea-island cotton, which matured only in the 
lowlands of the southern seacoast, but when the cotton gin 
made the cotton lint of the short-staple cotton easily separable 
from the seed, the growing of this short-staple cotton became 
extremely profitable and cotton farming spread rapidly into the 
upland regions of the southern coast states. Before large scale 
cotton production had begun to pay good returns, the institu- 
tion of slavery promised to be done away with gradually in 
the South as well as in the North, for slave labor was gener- 
ally regarded as unprofitable. Extensive cotton farming could, 
on the other hand, be very profitably pursued with slave labor, 
with the result that slave labor almost exclusively came to be 
used in cotton raising. As the economic prosperity of the 
South came to be so definitely dependent on slavery, the atti- 
tude of southern people toward it radically changed. 

The increase in the production of cotton was fabulous. In 
1790 only 1,500,000 pounds were produced in the United 
States. By 1807 the amount had increased to 80,000,000 
pounds. During this period South Carolina and Georgia con- 
tinued to be the chief cotton states. During the next decade 
and thereafter cotton raising was found to be profitable in 
Tennessee and the Gulf states. Alabama, Louisiana, and 
Mississippi became a new El Dorado and during the period 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 371 

between 1810 and 1840, the population of those states in- 
creased from 117,000 to more than 1,300,000. By 1830 the 
annual production of cotton in the United States had increased 
from the 80,000,000 pounds of 1807 to 350,000,000. In 1840 
the production of cotton by means of slave labor was the 
predominant industry of the vast section which extended from 
the southern boundaries of Virginia and Tennessee to the Gulf 
of Mexico on the south and well into Texas on the west. 

During the same period that the East was becoming an 
industrial section and experiencing all the social changes that 
the "industrial revolution" brought with it, the South was de- 
veloping as has been indicated, into a section devoted pre- 
dominantly to plantation agriculture on the basis of slave 
labor. Cotton was king; but tobacco, rice, and sugar also 
were crops well-adapted to large system farming and slave 
labor. The prosperity of the small farmer of the Piedmont 
was tied up to that of the large plantation owner of the tide- 
water and lowlands. The profits of the slave-owner of Virginia 
and the tobacco country in general were dependent on their 
sale of surplus slaves to the planters of the new cotton states. 
Slavery came to be regarded as the foundation of economic 
prosperity in the great Cotton Kingdom and the necessary basis 
of the social and political order. Southerners no longer 
apologized for the institution of slavery, nor even justified it 
on the grounds of economic expediency. They came to defend 
their "peculiar institution" as justified in the laws of God and 
human society. The professor in his chair and the minister in 
his pulpit built up the arguments in favor of negro slavery 
and between them presented a solid front against the accusa- 
tion of many ardent opponents in the East and in the West, 
who asserted that human bondage was a foul wrong against 
humanity and that a constitution which tolerated it was "an 
agreement with Hell." The South in 1845 was an economic 
and cultural unit. 

What was to the capitalist-manufacturer of New England 
a necessity, namely, a high tariff, was to the southern planter 
an abomination. He desired free markets for his raw products 



372 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

and a cheap supply of the manufactured goods and agricul- 
tural products which he in turn had to buy. Political change 
occurred more slowly in the southern states than in New 
England and the West. Indeed, the rich tidewater planters 
continued until after the Civil War to control state politics 
in spite of the extension of the suffrage to all white males. 
The distribution of seats in the state legislature was such as 
to give a majority to the eastern, or large plantation, section 
of the states. The somewhat patriarchal governing class was 
slow in coming to the philosophy of universal public educa- 
tion, but by the close of the period the cause of public educa- 
tion seemed to be on the eve of a complete victory in many 
of the southern states. 

The West. — The predominant occupation of the West was 
diversified farming and stock, raising. What the western 
farmer wanted was better markets, and to that end he needed 
turnpikes, canals, and railways. The Westerners were also 
interested in the government's land policy. They wanted land 
to be free, or at least cheap, and they wanted a liberal pre- 
emption law which would protect the right of the squatter who 
had occupied and improved land without possessing title to it. 
The western man was also an ardent expansionist. He wanted 
the United States to be extended to the Pacific Ocean. Inci- 
dentally, he wanted the Indians to be crowded off the face of 
the earth. 

Conflict between East and South. — The entire period 
from the time of the first election of Jackson to the outbreak 
of the Civil War was taken up with conflicts between the East 
and the South on one issue or another, which always went back 
to the fundamentally different economic interests of the two 
sections. The tariff question brought about the Nullification 
Act in South Carolina in 1832 and almost precipitated a war 
for the preservation of the Union. The agitation over the 
admission of Texas was caused fundamentally by the desire of 
the South to augment its political influence by the addition of 
another great slave and cotton state. Not only did the East 
oppose the annexation of Texas, but it opposed the entire 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 373 

Mexican War program and the program of imperialism which 
added to the territory of the United States the entire Spanish 
Southwest. The West supported the South in its Mexican 
poHcy because it wanted the support of the South in favor of 
the forcible seizure of the entire Oregon Territory. "All of 
Texas" was balanced by "Fifty-four forty or fight." The 
Southerners during this period wanted to buy or take Cuba 
from Spain and the people of the East and West desired to 
aid Canada in her fight against England with the idea of pos- 
sible union between Canada and the United States. But in all 
this ardent imperialism — all this assertion of the strict national 
interest against all foreign interests whatsoever — there was a 
controlling element of sectionalism. The southern politician 
wanted Texas not so much for the aggrandizement and profit 
of his country as a whole, as because he desired a new slave 
state with its additional political influence at Washington in 
determining national policies. The westerner desired Oregon, 
even at the cost of war with England, largely because it was 
an extension of his own section with its peculiar interests. 

During this entire period there was no development that 
tended to lessen the gap between East and South. The West 
came to be drawn ever closer to the East because of the 
development of means of transportation between these two 
sections, and the interlocking of economic interests. But the 
South came to be a section apart. The exigencies of politics 
and the frontier interests of the western South had long kept 
the South and the West in alliance, but when the straight-out 
issue developed of a Union all-slave or all-free, the West found 
itself standing with the East, against the South. With this 
new political alignment threatening its economic interests, 
the South declared the Union dissolved and set up a new 
Confederacy in which its "peculiar institution" might be pre- 
served and strengthened^^ 

No Extension of Federal Participation in Education. — 
The period between Jackson and Lincoln did not result in 
any real extension of the sense of nationality because there 
was not among the three clearly defined sections — East, South, 



374 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

and West — any dominant common interest to serve as its 
foundation. The period represents rather the development side 
by side of two separate and widely different cultures, — East 
and South, with the ultimate allegiance of the West uncertain 
until a few years before the Civil War, when it accepted the 
cause of the East as its own. It is a period likewise of jealous 
safeguarding of the rights of the states and of strict curtailment 
of the powers of the central government. The policy of fed- 
eral aid to the states for internal improvements, begun under 
Jefferson, was soon discontinued as unconstitutional. The 
federal grant of the school and university sections of the public 
lands to the new states was continued, it is true. The Five 
Per Cent Fund, namely, five per cent of the net return from 
the sale of public lands within the states, continued to be 
given to the new states for public improvements or for edu- 
cation. In 1837 the surplus revenue that was accumulating 
in the national treasury was distributed without interest or 
security to the separate states. But all of these actions were 
to be explained not so much on the basis of federal generosity 
and the extension of federal control, as on the basis of states 
rights. There was no extension of the federal interest in edu- 
cation and no development of federal machinery of educational 
administration between 1828 and 1861. 

The Common People Take the Helm. — The preceding 
chapter has described the changes which took place with refer- 
ence to the franchise in the years between the adoption of the 
federal Constitution and the first election of Andrew Jackson 
as president. The latter event occurred in 1828, while many 
of the extensions of the suffrage in the various states had 
taken place long before that time. The election of 1828 
marks the end of a political epoch and the beginning of a new 
one not because changes in the regulations governing the right 
to vote took place at that time, but because the great mass 
of the people were aroused by the issues and personalities 
of that presidential campaign to use their political power for 
the first time. The issue was largely a contest for control 
between the old political aristocracy represented in John 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 375 

Quincy Adams, polished gentleman, scholar, and statesman, 
and the new democracy made up of the lower economic groups 
in the eastern states and of practically the entire population of 
the fourteen states of the West, whose standard-bearer and 
champion was Andrew Jackson, "Old Hickory," Indian fighter 
and pioneer. The campaign cry of the new Democrats was, 
"Let the People rule," and the only recognizable issue of the 
campaign was whether or not the will of the thousands of plain 
people should control the government or whether government 
on the part of "gentlemen who knew how to rule" should con- 
tinue. The enthusiasm of the campaign in itself constituted a 
political revolution, because for the first time a large proportion 
of those entitled to vote exercised this privilege. The result 
of the election represented a real popular mandate. No 
longer were the propertied and educated classes to rule as if 
by divine right in Washington and the state capitals. Hence- 
forth the povver of the plain people was to be supreme in poli- 
tics, and those political leaders who could carry the plain 
people with them were to be the controllers of our political 
destiny. 

The political history of the next thirty years of American 
life describes distinctly different conditions from those ex- 
hibited during the first forty years of the nation's existence. 
The old Virginia-Massachusetts hierarchy of presidents and 
statesmen was succeeded in national councils by men whose 
chief claim to power was their ability to control or follow a 
popular constituency. The efficient bureaucracy which had 
been trained in its administrative duties and continued from 
year to year without respect to political changes was thrown 
out to make places for the political campfollowers who had 
aided in the election of the successful candidate. The spoils 
system of politics came in with the rule of the people and 
continued in our political history unchecked almost to the end 
of the century. The immediate result was a decided lowering 
of administrative efficiency and of faithfulness to public trust. 

A noticeable characteristic of politics following the Jack- 
sonian revolution was the small part played by policies and 



376 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

platforms and the large part played by political manipulation 
and personalities. Twice Andrew Jackson was elected with- 
out a settled policy or platform just because the people con- 
sidered him their man. William Henry Harrison and Zachary 
Taylor were chosen as candidates for the high office of presi- 
dent and elected on their war records without reference to 
political policy. The other type of man which appealed to 
political leaders as candidates for president was represented 
in Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan, — men without strong 
convictions or definite policies. The system of nominating 
by great party conventions which grew up during this period 
was favorable to the machinations of political leaders who 
picked candidates and wrote platforms largely from the stand- 
point of vote getting. The candidate who had no damaging 
political record and who could swing a constituency of his 
own was the kind sought for. It was all the better if he had 
come up out of poverty. A good war record also was espe- 
cially desirable. As far as possible the nominating conventions 
sought to avoid real issues. Nothing that could cause the 
defection of the smallest section or the loss of a single state 
would be permitted to go into the statement of party purposes 
if it could by any possibility be kept out. Party candidates 
and party platforms had to be ''all things to all men," as far 
as such a happy consummation could be achieved. 

The political conditions described above are to an appre- 
ciable extent characteristic of the United States today, but in 
the days of Jackson and thereafter up to the Civil War such 
things were new. The class which had controlled politics in 
the earlier decades naturally thought that the country was 
rapidly going to perdition when Andrew Jackson became 
President and introduced his political friends to Washington 
society and placed them in public office. 

Progress in the Development of State Administrative 

Systems 

Heightened Activity in behalf of Public Education. — 

As a result of the new political influence which the people en- 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 377 

joyed, the necessity of making the general run of voters more 
competent to exercise such high authority became evident to 
the better educated and more public spirited citizens. Better 
facilities of education did not in general result from the de- 
mands of those who had not enjoyed their advantages. The 
rural sections, where popular education was at its worst, were 
most obstructive to the new ideals of free public schools 
for all. The industrial cities in which all the conditions inci- 
dent to a crowded, unnatural existence early showed the need 
for public care of the oncoming generation, had led the way 
to general provision of public schools through the transitional 
stage of private philanthropy aided out of the public purse. 
In this movement the lead had been taken by public spirited 
individuals who had the welfare of society at heart. With the 
development of the labor movement in the thirties, the or- 
ganized workers of the cities added their voice and influence 
to the first-named group and demanded free public schools not 
as a private philanthropic undertaking, but as a public enter- 
prise controlled and supported out of the public funds. 

Public spirited men everywhere united in the effort to 
secure a popular mandate for public schools where none such 
existed and to improve such as were already in operation. 
Organizations were formed all over the country in the interest 
of public education. Educational journalism had its beginning 
during this period with the objective of spreading information 
concerning the existing educational destitution, of awakening 
public interest in the provision of better facilities for public 
education, and of making familiar to all the best examples of 
school administration and methods in our own and foreign 
lands. The teachers themselves organized in the course of 
the period and added the influence of their professional group 
for the provision of more and better schools. 

The American Way of School Reform. — The way in 
which "the battle for free state schools" was fought is symp- 
tomatic of our political institutions. The people v/ere defi- 
nitely and powerfully intrenched in their control of public 
policy and the public purse. They were by habit and outlook 



378 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 17S9 

averse to any curtailment of the individual freedom which they 
enjoyed, which would follow upon state action regarding the 
provision of schools. They were money-poor, although self- 
subsistent, and vigorously opposed to the increase of taxation. 
Booklearning was not immediately essential to the lives they 
led and they could with difficulty see the necessity for edu- 
cating their children beyond the very limited degree to which 
their own schooling had progressed. Added to the apathy of 
the general run of the voting public to better schools, there 
was always to be encountered the selfishness of some of the 
well-to-do who provided privately for the education of their 
children and were unwilling to pay taxes on their property for 
the schooling of the children of their neighbors, whom they 
probably regarded as shiftless or improvident. 

Against these twin citadels of apathy and penuriousness, the 
attacks of thje friends of free public schools were directed. In 
countries with aristocratic institutions, as we have seen, public 
education was provided by the ruling classes as a means of 
self-protection. In our own country there was no interest 
intrenched in political control that was able to hand out public 
schools as a combination of largesse and social insurance. 
The people who believed in public schools were compelled to 
educate the rest of the political public into the same belief. 
This they did by means of public meetings, newspaper cam- 
paigns, educational organizations, and agitation in season and 
out of season for the objective to which they were devoted. 
The activities of the friends of public education produced 
results in the twenties and the thirties which have frequently 
been named the Common School Revival. 

The Common School Revival 

In the New England states, outside of Rhode Island, there 
were already state laws requiring the maintenance of public 
schools, while the other states had no such laws. In New 
England the object was to improve and vitalize the schools 
required by law. Elsewhere it was to establish such schools 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 379 

for the first time by laws compelling state-wide observance. 
Closely connected with the question of the supply of public 
schools was the matter of their support. In all sections, in- 
cluding New England, at least partial support of schools by 
fees paid by the parents of the children taught, was common. 
Where the proportionate cost of the school to each parent was 
publicly determined and the shares collected by civil authori- 
ties, the system was called the rate-bill system. All along the 
line there was a contest looking to the elimination of this 
"tax upon children" and to the entire support of public schools 
out of public funds. Among other phases of the improvement 
of public education during this period are to be mentioned 
the erection of state administrative machinery, the develop- 
ment or reorganization of local authorities, the fostering of 
schools higher than the elementary schools, the training of 
teachers, and the enrichment of the curriculum. All of these 
elements of improved school conditions were more or less 
closely intermingled in legislation and among the states there 
was no orderly evolution according to type or example. 

The Question of European Influence. — Our attention has 
frequently been called to the large interest shown among 
American educators during the twenties and thirties in the 
development of national machinery for the administration of 
education in foreign countries, particularly in Prussia. Nu- 
merous Americans at that time visited Europe to see how edu- 
cation was carried on there and brought back reports that had 
wide circulation among intelligent readers. One of the most 
influential of those reports was that made in 1839 by Calvin E. 
Stowe, who had been commissioned by the Ohio Legislature to 
make a report on the conditions of elementary education in 
Europe. Most of his attention was given to the Prussian sys- 
tem of school administration and teacher training as then in 
operation and to the comparatively rich curriculum of the 
elementary schools. Henry Barnard at about the same time 
made an extensive journey among European states in order 
to study their educational conditions and during the next 
twenty years the journals of which he was editor constituted 



38o NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 178Q 

a fertile source of information for American educators con- 
cerning the best European practice. Horace Mann, while he 
was Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, 
also gave an extended and critical description of the school 
conditions of the most important European countries as he 
had seen them in 1843. This information was issued in his 
Seventh Annual Report, dated the same year. 

Earlier chapters of this book have indicated the fact that 
both France and Prussia had by 1833, and earlier, adopted 
comprehensive systems of educational administration on a 
national basis. Both had gone extensively into the work of 
improving the quality of teachers by means of normal schools 
and both had considerably enriched the content of studies in 
the schools of the common people. It is natural to suppose 
that the example of highly organized systems of administra- 
tion had its influence on American practice and such influence 
has been frequently taken for granted in books on American 
education. But that the influence was immediate or that it 
developed to any considerable extent is after all rather difficult 
to prove. It is probable that the example of the European 
countries, particularly that of Prussia as being the most effi- 
ciently carried through, served as a general example to the 
friends of education in the United States. To say, however, 
that there was any close imitation of Prussian, or even Euro- 
pean practice, during this period, seems to be denied by the 
facts of the development of •state and local machinery of edu- 
cational administration and by the real inwardness of the 
evolution of American schools. After a survey of major edu- 
cational changes, we can come back to the question of Euro- 
pean influence. 

State Educational Administration 

The Office of State Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
tion. — Although there were earlier examples of the creation of 
a state administrative function corresponding to that of state 
superintendent of public schools, the period from 1828 to 



SECTIOXALISM AXD DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 381 

1 86 1 saw the real development and general adoption of that 
office throughout the States. New York had provided in its 
law of 181 2 for an officer to be known as superintendent of 
common schools. His duties were to be the supervision of the 
system of common schools created by the law and particularly 
the distribution of the state aid provided for in the same act. 
It is said that the wrath of the politicians, which is to say the 
wrath of the people at large, was aroused because Gideon 
Hawley, the first superintendent, magnified the function of 
educational leadership which was implied in his commission, 
and as a result the office was discontinued in 1821, and what 
were considered its legitimate functions were entrusted to the 
secretary of state ex officio. 

Predominant Business Function of the Early State 
Superintendents. — The early history of the highest state edu- 
cational office, as exemplified in the incident just cited, indi- 
cates that one of the important elements that entered into the 
creation of the office was the necessity of having a business 
official to keep straight the financial accounts between the state 
and the local authorities. When an otherwise busy state offi- 
cial was made the head of the education Interest of the state 
it is rather obvious that the functions thus delegated to him 
were largely of the nature of bookkeeping. This conclusion is 
corroborated by a convincing array of examples. 

As a case in point, when Michigan in 1835 was ready to be 
admitted to the Union, the bad results of entrusting to town- 
ship authorities the administration of the federal sixteenth 
section grants, had already become evident. The local au- 
thorities, by carelessness or venality, or both, had in all too 
many cases frittered away what might have constituted an 
extremely valuable endowment of the common schools. As a 
result, a large part of the sixteenth sections had been lost to 
the townships with nothing to show for them. The Michigan 
convention which framed the constitution of the state upon its 
admission petitioned Congress that the national grant be made 
to the state as a whole for the use of all the schools of the 
state. Even before Michigan became a state there had been 



382 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

provided an officer whose duty it was to look after the terri- 
torial school lands and his title was superintendent of common 
schools. In 1836, when the state was organized, this official 
became head of the state school system with the title superin- 
tendent of public instruction. 

The advantage of the Michigan form of administration of 
the federal grant for common schools was readily seen and 
thereafter each new state, Florida excepted, was made cus- 
todian of the school lands for the state as a whole. Of the 
states admitted to the Union following Michigan up to the 
outbreak of the Civil War, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minne- 
sota, and Kansas provided in their original state constitutions 
for the office of state superintendent of public instruction. 
Between the two facts of the new method of administering 
the common school land grants and the creation of a state 
superintendent of common schools, there would seem to be a 
close causal connection. 

Ex-officio State Superintendents. — In the older states, 
the evolution of the highest state school office outside of New 
England was almost uniformly through the intermediate step 
of making the secretary of state, or some other state officer 
ex officio state superintendent of schools. This occurred in 
Pennsylvania, New York, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Mis- 
souri, Arkansas, and Illinois, in all of which the secretary of 
state for a longer or shorter time served as superintendent of 
schools. In Tennessee and Texas this function was performed 
ex officio by the state treasurer and in Oregon by the governor. 
In Florida, the registrar of public lands was in 1850 made 
ex officio school superintendent. Further corroboration of the 
financial bearing of the state school superintendency in its 
early form is to be found in the fact that in 1842 the State of 
Connecticut abolished its board of education and the office of 
its secretary and for a short time following 1845 ga-ve the state 
commissioner of the school fund the title and duties of super- 
intendent of public schools. 

The implication is clear that in its beginning the office of 
state superintendent of public schools was largely financial 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 383 

and statistical in its duties and powers. So long as the head 
of the public school system of the state was limited in his 
functions to supervising the distribution of such moneys as the 
state contributed to the aid of local educational effort, we 
cannot expect a great deal of active leadership for better 
schools on the part of the state governments. Before the 
Civil War period, however, new state legislation had increased 
the extent of the states' participation in the matter of educa- 
tion to an extent that made it impossible for the education 
work to be conducted as an aspect of the statistical and dis- 
tributing functions of the secretary of state. These enlarged 
educational duties were accompanied by the erection of the 
separate office of state superintendent of public instruction 
in many of the states before the outbreak of the Civil War. 

The State Board and the Secretary of the State Board 
of Education. — During the same period in which the office of 
state superintendent of public instruction was evolving as de- 
scribed above, a different development of state educational 
machinery was taking place in the New England states. In 
1837 the legislature of the State of Massachusetts created a 
State Board of Education with power to appoint an executive 
secretary. The authority of the Board of Education was 
limited to making an abstract of the school returns from the 
town school committees, to reporting to the legislature annually 
the condition and efficiency of the common schools of the state, 
and to suggesting ways and means of improving public educa- 
tion. The duties of the Secretary of the Board, in the words 
of the act which created the office, were to "collect informa- 
tion of the actual condition and efficiency of the common 
schools and other means of popular education, and diffuse a3 
widely as possible throughout every part of the Commonwealth 
information of the most approved and successful methods of 
arranging the studies and conducting the education of the 
young, to the end that all children in this Commonwealth who 
depend upon common schools for instruction may have the 
best education which those schools can be made to impart."' 

Neither the Board of Education nor the Secretary had any 



384 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

important financial functions, for in Massachusetts at that 
time the only aid rendered by the state to local education 
authorities was through the distribution of the income from 
the state school fund established in 1834. The duties of the 
Board, and particularly those of the Secretary, were strictly 
educational ones. They were to endeavor by all the means in 
their power to improve the schools and the instruction given 
in them. And just what means were in their power? Did the 
law empower them to fix standards of teacher preparation, to 
specify what text books should be used, to determine the fitness 
of teachers by means of state-wide examinations, to draw up 
plans for buildings which the localities would have to adopt, 
or to prescribe a minimum term of school? The law did noth- 
ing of the sort. That would most emphatically not have been 
the Massachusetts way in 1837. The newly created central 
authority had scarcely any power that did not reside in the 
ability of the Board and the Secretary to arouse the conscience 
of the people in favor of better schools through the ordinary 
means of publicity, argument, and persuasion. The new office 
was evangelistic rather than administrative. The function of 
the Secretary was to arouse the people to a desire for better 
school conditions and to make them willing to vote the money 
to bring such conditions about. 

The twelve years of the term of office of Horace Mann, the 
first Secretary of the State Board of Education in Massa- 
chusetts, were devoted to the process of enlightening the elec- 
torate of Massachusetts. By means of local conventions of 
citizens which he addressed, by means of the Common School 
Journal which he published, by means of teachers' institutes 
which he organized, by means of the Annual Reports which he 
prepared, by means of exhortation, argument, and demonstra- 
tion directed to the public in season and out of season, the 
Secretary did his work. That it was a good work and that 
the means employed were not impotent is shown by the fol- 
lowing summary of the changes in the public schools of Massa- 
chusetts which took place during his term of service as Sec- 
retary: 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 385 

"Statistics tell us that the appropriations for public schools 
had doubled; that more than two million dollars had been 
spent in providing better schoolhouses; that the wages of men 
as teachers had increased sixty-two per cent, of women fifty- 
one per cent, while the whole number of women employed had 
increased fifty-four per cent; one month had been added to 
the average length of the schools; the ratio of private school 
expenditures to those of public schools had diminished from 
seventy-five per cent to thirty-six per cent; the compensation 
of school committees had been made -compulsory, and their 
supervision was more general and more constant; three normal 
schools had been established, and had sent out several hun- 
dred teachers, who were making themselves felt in all parts of 
the state. 

"All these changes, great as they were in themselves, had 
their significance as indications of a new public spirit. The 
great work which had been accomplished had been to change 
the apathy and indifference of the people toward the common 
schools into appreciation and active interest." ^ 

The Massachusetts Precedent in Other New England 
States. — The development of state authorities in the other New 
England states followed generally the Massachusetts prece- 
dent. Connecticut in 1839 created a Board of Commissioners 
for Public Schools and authorized this Board to appoint a 
Secretary, the duties of whom were to be "to ascertain the 
condition, increase the interest, and promote the usefulness of 
the common schools." The Board and the office of Secretary 
were shortly afterwards abolished, but when the head of the 
State Normal School was made ex officio Superintendent of 
Common Schools in 1849, the educational nature of the highest 
state school office was reaffirmed. The state returned to the 
plan of 1839 in 1865. Rhode Island in 1843 created the office 
of State School Agent and in 1845 changed the title of this 
office to that of State Commissioner of Public Schools. 
Vermont in 1827 created a State Board of Commissioners for 

^ Martin, The Evolution of the Massachusetts Public School System, 
pp. 174-S. 



386 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

Public Schools with the functions of recommending textbooks 
to be used in the schools and of proposing desirable educational 
legislation. In 1856 Vermont adopted the Massachusetts 
plan of 1837. New Hampshire in 1846 made the beginnings 
of state school supervision in creating the office of State School 
Commissioner, who was to be appointed by the Governor and 
Council. The duties of this officer were practically those of 
the Secretary of the Board of Education in Massachusetts. 
In the same year Maine adopted the Massachusetts precedent, 
but in 1852 gave it up and two years later provided for a 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction to be appointed by 
the Governor and Council. 

State Boards with Duties Mainly Financial. — In the 
earlier part of this section dealing with state educational 
administration, we discussed the development of the office of 
state superintendent as conceived to be concerned mainly with 
the collection of school statistics and the distribution of school 
funds to local authorities. So limited were his functions that 
in many of the states they devolved upon some other state 
official in his ex officio capacity. In much the same way boards 
of education were created in some of the states with functions 
that were mainly financial. As early as 1815 the State of 
Virginia created a state board to look after the Literary Fund. 
In 1834 a State Board of Commissioners was provided in 
Tennessee to supervise the school fund of the state, and two 
years later, Kentucky created a State Board of Education 
from the same motive. In 1835 Missouri created an ex officio 
Committee for Literary Purposes. Arkansas in 1843 estab- 
lished an ex officio State Board of Education. Texas in 1854 
constituted the Chief Justice and the County Commissioners 
an ex officio State School Board. Indiana created an ex officio 
State Board of Education in 1851 and Kansas did the same in 
her first state constitution in 1859. 

The frequency of the ex officio state board of education 
and of other forms of state boards with purely financial func- 
tions indicates that the states which had such educational 
boards and no other sort at the same time, had not advanced 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 387 

very far in their conception of the power and the duty of the 
state to maintain a position of leadership in education. Such 
boards had scarcely any educational functions in the true sense 
of the word. They were not concerned with setting up 
standards, stimulating improvement on the part of local au- 
thorities, initiating better educational legislation, or in admin- 
istering an educational system. 

The New York Development. — When all the factors that 
enter into the present status of state educational offices are 
summed up, an important place must be found for the de- 
velopments that took place in New York State during this 
period. It is here among all the states that we find the first 
example of a state system of school administration which really 
possessed and exercised power over individual institutions and 
local authorities, and extended the power of the central au- 
thority at the expense of local prerogative. The state admin- 
istration was able to increase its influence because the state 
was making extensive appropriations to the costs of local edu- 
cation and because conditions were attached to state grants. 
In 1837 was begun the policy of giving the income from the 
Deposit Fund (see p. 389), to districts on condition that the 
school term be not less than four months in length. In 1841 
a law was passed which created the office of deputy superin- 
tendent of common schools for each county. These deputy 
superintendents, while appointed by the supervisors of the 
counties, were to examine and license all teachers for the 
county, and to have general supervision of the schools in the 
county, subject to the rules and regulations of the state au- 
thorities. The importance of this new educational work called 
for the creation in 1841 of a Deputy Secretary of State for 
Schools, who to all intents and purposes was a Superintendent 
of Common Schools. Two years later this official was given 
power to grant teachers' certificates possessing state-wide 
validity. In 1854 a state department of education was organ- 
ized with a State Superintendent of Public Instruction at its 
head. 

The control of secondary education during this period re- 



388 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

mained under the Board of Regents of the University of the 
State of New York By reason of the fact that the Board of 
Regents had state money to distribute to secondary schools, 
especially in the form of subsidy to academies engaged in 
teacher training work, it was able to exercise considerable 
influence over the standards of secondary education through- 
out the entire state. 

The State Superintendency at the Time of the Civil 
War. — Before the Civil War, practically all the states of the 
sections described in an earlier connection as the East and the 
West (see p. 368 and following) had provided for a separate 
official to serve as the head of the interests of public education 
in the state. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Vermont still 
followed the usage of having a Secretary of the State Board 
of Education, appointed by the Board, as the state leader in 
education, but the other states had pretty uniformly come to 
the practice of having a chief educational officer who was 
elected by popular vote on a party platform like any other 
state officer, and who bore the title of State Superintendent 
of Public Instruction, State Commissioner of Common Schools, 
or State Superintendent of Common Schools. The passing of 
the predominantly financial function of chief school officer is 
indicated by the change from ex officio state superintendents 
which was accomplished during this period in the East and 
the West. The new chief school officer continued to have 
financial functions, it is true, and these functions increased and 
continued to increase as the states came to give greater sums 
in aid of local educational endeavor. But the State Superin- 
tendent of Public Schools was more than a collector of school 
statistics and more than a disburser of state grants. He was 
an educational evangelist with a roving commission to preach 
the gospel of better schools everywhere throughout the com- 
monwealth which he served. His business was to improve 
the facilities for public education by any means in his power, 
which in this early period were mainly the means of pub- 
licity. By his spoken and written word, by the organization 
of interest in education wherever he found it, by the en- 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 389 

couragement of all movements looking to the betterment of 
schools, he endeavored to educate lawmakers and people to 
an enlarged vision of education. 

Among the Southern States, North Carolina, Louisiana, 
Kentucky, Alabama, and Missouri had, before the Civil War, 
created the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
tion with that title or its equivalent. The rest of the South- 
ern States had failed to create a separate chief educational 
office, and in this group must be included Delaware. Maryland, 
Virginia, Delaware, South Carolina, and Georgia had no chief 
state educational officer whatever, and Tennessee, Mississippi, 
Arkansas, Florida, and Texas still remained at the stage of 
educational evolution where some state official was able to 
care for the functions connected with public education along 
with the other duties of his office. 

State Financial Aid. — The early national period had seen 
the beginnings of state aid to local authorities in maintaining 
public schools. The form which this aid took during that 
period was largely the distribution of income from state school 
funds, although direct contributions out of current state reve- 
nues were not unknown. The period immediately preceding 
the Civil War saw important increases in the amount of finan- 
cial aid rendered by the states to the cause of public educa- 
tion. 

In 1836, the United States government found itself in 
flourishing financial condition with a large surplus in the 
treasury. Congress decided to distribute this surplus to the 
individual states without interest, but subject to recall. Three 
quotas of the money were distributed in 1837, but before the 
end of that year a great financial crash had occurred and the 
national treasury was emptied. The panic of 1837 was due to 
the over-expansion of credits in every line of development and 
to the excessive borrowings of the state governments to carry 
out programs of internal improvement. When loans were 
called in there was no money to pay with. Some of the 
states had devoted all or a part of the Surplus Revenue Fund 
to education, either for buildings and current aid or for the 



390 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

increase of permanent funds. In the financial stringency fol- 
lowing the panic of 1837, much of the Surplus Revenue was 
applied to relieve the distress of the state treasuries and even 
older school funds were absorbed into the general finances of 
the states. When good times came again and the credit of the 
states was restored, many of the funds which had been cred- 
ited to education, but which had been dissipated, were re- 
acknowledged as a permanent interest-bearing debt by the 
states. Aid to education out of the defunct funds was revived 
on the basis of an annual state tax for the public schools. 

In many other ways the states during this period extended 
aid to education. In fact, almost every state made specific 
contributions, either in the form of a state tax or through the 
gift of stated sums. The policy followed by New York State 
in aiding local education authorities has already been men- 
tioned (see p. 387). Connecticut during this period was con- 
spicuous among the states for the large share of the cost of 
education which was borne by the state in the form of income 
distributed from state funds. For a period the effect of the 
state's aid in Connecticut was unfavorable to educational 
progress, because the districts and towns came to rely wholly 
upon state aid and lost all willingness to tax themselves for 
the support and improvement of schools. Rhode Island, New 
Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, South 
Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana made annual contributions to 
elementary or secondary education in the form of annual 
grants or through assuming the expenses of educating pauper 
children. New Hampshire continued its policy of a state tax 
for public schools, although the ratio of state to local taxa- 
tion grew smaller year by year. In 1851, New York levied a 
state tax for educational purposes and in the same year the 
new state constitution of Virginia provided for a capitation 
tax on white persons for the aid of primary and free schools. 
Kentucky, Ohio, Louisiana, Illinois, California, Oregon, and 
Kansas at about the same time began the policy of state taxa- 
tion for schools, and Texas set aside one-tenth of its total 
revenue for the same purpose. 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 391 

Local Education Authorities 

The period between 1828 and 1861 saw important changes 
in respect to the local authorities for education. In the states 
where there had been no local school organization, such was 
generally provided, and in the states where such an organiza- 
tion already existed many important modifications occurred. 

Among the states which in the early national period had 
made the most favorable showing in respect to the provision 
of public schools, a process of disintegration of the area of 
local control had continued to the point where the school dis- 
trict was practically supreme. The smallest practicable unit 
for school support and administration had been reached. The 
district school committee and the district school meeting were 
in a position to give the final decision in regard to the qualifi- 
cations of teachers, the subjects to be studied, housing and 
equipment, length of term, and any other point of school 
practice. 

The Way up from the District System. — Wherever the 
district system has been in existence in this country, the his- 
tory of school improvement is a record of the effort of state 
governments to take away some of the absolute power of the 
districts and to enforce standards higher than the districts, 
uninfluenced by higher controls, would reach by their own 
efforts. This result has been achieved partly by the setting 
up of standards by state legislatures which all districts have 
been compelled to reach, but the most vital progress had been 
made through the creation or the revival of local authorities 
serving larger areas and possessing larger financial resources 
than the atomic school district. 

New Powers for ,the Town School Committee in 
Massachusetts. — In Massachusetts the fight to curtail the 
powers of the school district began in 1826, when a law was 
passed which required every town to choose a school com- 
mittee, to which was given the general supervision and control 
of all schools in the town. This committee was empowered 
to choose the text books to be used in the schools and was 



392 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

given the important power of examining and certificating all 
teachers for the town schools. For a long time, however, the 
customs of an earlier time prevailed in spite of the new law, 
and when Horace Mann became Secretary of the State Board 
of Education he found that school committees were frequently 
lacking and otherwise not performing the duties which the 
law of 1826 enjoined upon them. One of the great services 
which he renderedcto education was his work in securing the 
passage of a law providing compensation for school committees. 
Through his efforts the town school committees became the 
real local authorities for education in the State. To be sure, 
this was yet a long way from expert management of school 
interests, but it constituted an important step in that direc- 
tion. The schools were taken out of the immediate control 
of possible local apathy or ignorance and placed in the hands 
of a committee chosen to represent the town as a whole. The 
result was an improved personnel in charge of community 
education and the beginning of a tendency to apply the best 
standards of the time to all the schools. 
/changes Back to the Town System in the Other New 
England States. — The other New England states, except 
Rhode Island, followed Massachusetts, rather haltingly, to be 
sure, in the steps that led away from the district system. 
Connecticut in 1856 abolished the school societies, which were 
in that state a counterpart of the Massachusetts district, and 
transferred all the powers and duties which they had enjoyed 
to the town, although the school districts as such continued. 
New Hampshire a little later allowed the consolidation of two 
or more contiguous districts for school purposes. In 1827, 
Vermont adopted the town system of licensing teachers and 
provided for a superintending committee to be chosen by the 
town. Six years later, however, the legislature experienced 
a change of heart and all supervision was abolished. In 1854 
Vermont came back to the town system of school control and 
went one better in providing for a town superintendent of 
schools. In Maine as early as 182 1 town school committees 
were created who examined teachers and exercised general 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 393 

supervision over the schools. A few years later union town 
schools were authorized and in 1834 power was given to any 
town by general vote to abolish the school districts and or- 
ganize its public education as a unit. 

Local Education Authorities in the Southern States. — 
During this period most of the older southern states made the 
beginnings of public education and created local authorities 
for its control. In this section, where large plantations were 
the rule and always had been, the county was the traditional 
unit of local government, and when education came to be 
organized the county was generally adopted as the unit of 
school control. This was the case in Delaware, Virginia, North 
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Texas, while South Carolina 
created a special area, known as the district, for this purpose. 
Maryland, Kentucky, and Tennessee can hardly be said to 
have had a system of local education authorities before the 
Civil War, but their abortive efforts along that line indicated 
the county as the preferred unit. Among all these«states, how- 
ever, with the exception of North Carolina, there was little 
vitality in the efforts of local authorities. For example, the 
Virginia law of 1846 created county boards of school com- 
missioners who were to establish free elementary schools for 
white children in their counties, supported by state grants and 
county taxation; but this law made it optional with the coun- 
ties to adopt the new plan. Only nine counties in the state 
took favorable action. Georgia created county boards of edu- 
cation as a part of a comprehensive plan of free public edu- 
cation only two years before the outbreak of the Civil War, 
the coming of which, of course, greatly interfered with the 
development of the plan. North Carolina, often described as 
the least southern of the southern states, is a decided excep- 
tion to the general failure of the older South to develop state 
systems of public schools before the Civil War. In 1839, a 
law was passed in that state which provided for the election 
by the county courts of boards of county superintendents to 
serve as local education authorities. Local taxation was pro- 
vided for and state aid was allowed. The law was to go into 



394 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

effect in any county only on favorable vote of the citizens of 
the county and it is an indication of a healthy school interest 
that by 1846 all the counties of the state had taken action 
favorable to the law. By 1858, an average four months' term 
of school was maintained throughout the state, with over 
170,000 children in attendance. 

The newer southern states, with their large plantation sys- 
tem of agriculture, followed the lead of the older states in 
making the county the unit of educational administration, 
although there was some exception due to the influence of the 
federal grants of the sixteenth section to the townships. Of 
these newer states, Louisiana made the most conspicuous prog- 
ress toward a state system of public schools before the Civil 
War. In 1845, a- i^^w state constitution was adopted which 
put an end to the state's aid to private and parochial schools 
and proposed the development of a public school system. A 
law passed in 1847 created boards of directors in each parish 
(equivalent in area to the county), and imposed upon them the 
duty of maintaining schools that were to be open to all white 
children free of charge. Free education for all was not en- 
tirely achieved before the Civil War, but in i860 only one- 
eighth of the school expenses was met by tuition fees. 

Practically nothing was done by the ex officio county school 
boards created in Florida by the law of 1853, except to dis- 
tribute the thirty cents per school child that was annually 
distributed by the state as income from the state fund. In 
Alabama no local authorities were created before 1854, when 
three county commissioners for each county and trustees for 
each township were provided for. Up to the Civil War, how- 
ever, there was no real public school system, as all state and 
local effort consisted in aiding private schools out of public 
funds. In Mississippi, a law passed in 1846 created boards of 
school commissioners for each police district and gave these 
boards supervision of the sixteenth section lands. The law 
also clothed the boards of school commissioners with power 
to examine and license teachers and to open schools. The law, 
however, was operative only upon favorable vote of the inhabi- 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 395 

tants, which in most cases was withheld. Texas made the 
beginnings of a state school system only in 1854, and while a 
generous spirit was manifested on the part of the state, and 
local authorities were provided for the counties, the progress 
made toward the realization of this system before the Civil 
War was very limited. In Arkansas the county commissioners 
served as school authorities and progress toward a public 
school system was much retarded. 

In most of the southern states during the last thirty years 
of the old regime, special privileges were granted to the cities 
and larger towns and to special districts for the organization 
of local systems of free public schools. In many of the more 
populous sections, local taxation was levied to support the 
common schools and free education for all white children was 
coming to be provided. 

Practice in Other States. — Pennsylvania made each ward, 
borough, and township in the state a school district by the law 
of 1834 and each district was to have a school board of six 
directors, elected by the people. In 1854 all township boards 
were given corporate powers. The practice in New Jersey ap- 
proximated closely to that of Pennsylvania. In the western 
states, the terms of the federal grant served as a strong pre- 
disposition in favor of the township as the area for local 
school administration, and many of the states in that section 
up to the time of the Civil War had created township school 
authorities. The district system was extremely well adapted, 
however, to the needs of that pioneer country, and we find it 
universally prevalent. In many cases the townships were sub- 
divided into school districts, with the typical district organi- 
zation. Ohio in 1831 made the school district trustees bodies 
corporate, and it was only in 1853 that the school districts were 
deprived of corporate powers. Missouri made each township 
a school district and placed the control of school affairs in the 
hands of a township school board. Here again the process of 
township subdivision occurred. After several unsuccessful ef- 
forts to establish a state system on the township basis, Indiana 
adopted the district as the local education unit in 1833, and 



396 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

gave full powers to the district trustees. Illinois in 1825 
adopted the district system, but in 1837 a law was passed which 
made optional a change to the township system, according to 
which each township was to have a board of trustees with full 
powers of school management and certification of teachers. 
As many of the districts refused to unite under the township 
plan, and no further legislation has occurred on the point, 
Illinois remains to this day under the divided system of part 
district and part township local authorities. Iowa and Michi- 
gan organized the local administration of schools on the town- 
ship basis, but provided for subdistricts. In Wisconsin, school 
districts were created with large powers, but a town superin- 
tendent was provided to examine and certificate teachers. 
Minnesota followed practically the same plan, but provided 
for township trustees who were to examine and employ teach- 
ers. In i860 this function of the township trustees was trans- 
ferred to a township superintendent. Oregon and Kansas defi- 
nitely adopted the district system. 

The New York System. — The example of New York State 
in the matter of local school authorities and their relationship 
to the state authorities stands out as exceptional during this 
period. As early as 1795, a combined town and district organi- 
zation had been begun, which gave the town authorities the 
last word in the selection of teachers for the schools of the 
districts. When the distribution of income from the state fund 
began in 181 2, a new law made the state contribution de- 
pendent on local contribution and continued the combined plan 
of town and district control, with the balance of power in the 
hands of the town authorities. Two years later town supervi- 
sion was inaugurated and the licensing of teachers was placed 
in the hands of the town school officers. An appreciable in- 
crease in the state's contribution to the costs of the public 
schools was made in 1837, with a corresponding extension of 
the state's influence over local authorities. The law of 1839 
called for the appointment of unsalaried county boards of visi- 
tors and two years later a new law called for the appointment 
by the county supervisors of a deputy superintendent of schools 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 397 

for each county. It was to be the duty of this officer to ex- 
amine and license all teachei^s and to exercise general super- 
vision over the schools of the county, according to the rules 
and regulations of the state authorities. After some intermedi- 
ate changes, a school commissioner was created for each legis- 
lative assembly district. He was to be elected by the people 
and was to exercise the functions formerly performed by the 
deputy superintendent of schools for each county. 

The Office of County Superintendent. — The development 
in New York State which has just been described, namely, the 
creation of an administrative office midway between the state 
and the local authorities, was exemplified in a number of states 
before the Civil War. The gap that existed between the state 
office and the district or township trustees was too wide for 
efficient administration and a need was felt for an intermediate 
officer whose duty it should be to observe more closely the 
carrying out of school laws and the application of money con- 
tributed by the state. The varying standards which the local 
authorities applied to the qualifications of teachers made it 
desirable for prospective teachers to be examined by some offi- 
cial who presumably would maintain higher standards than 
were in vogue among local school trustees. As a result of 
these needs the office of county superintendent was created. At 
first the duties of the office were mainly financial. Perhaps the 
examination of teachers was the only strictly professional duty 
which the county superintendent was expected to perform. He 
was expected to visit schools, to be sure, which could give as- 
surance that the school for which the state paid out a subsidy 
was actually in existence. But in general the county superin- 
tendent was a statistical and financial officer, with certain pro- 
fessional duties thrown in. In many cases, it was not even 
expected nor specified in the law that he should have had 
educational experience, and in the early history of the office, 
the incumbent was in many cases without any professional 
qualifications whatsoever. In many states the county super- 
intendent was chosen on a party ticket at the general elections. 

The earliest mention of the office which the writer has been 



398 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

able to find is the provision for county superintendents in the 
Delaware law of 1826, which proved to be largely inoperative. 
The term "board of county superintendents" occurred in the 
North Carolina law of 1839, but this usage is the equivalent 
of county board of education. When in the following year, 
however, a new law provided for the choice of a chairman of 
the board of county superintendents we have practically the 
office of county superintendent as the word is generally used. 
New York created the office in 1841, as has been mentioned, 
and Pennsylvania, Iowa, Illinois, California, Oregon, and Kan- 
sas all created the office during the fifties. Vermont, Ohio, and 
Louisiana had created the office and after a short time abol- 
ished it. 

The City Superintendent of Schools. — The office of city 
superintendent of schools, which is a distinctively American 
institution, saw its beginnings before the Civil War, but the 
development of that office was very slight during that period. 
Cubberley says ^ that only twenty-five cities had appointed 
superintendents of schools before 1861. More extended con- 
sideration of the function and status of the city superintendent 
will be given in a later connection. 

The Public Schools Made Free 

The Free Public School Idea in the South. — Enough has 
been said under the caption of local authorities to indicate 
that before the Civil War none of the southern states, old or 
new, had created a state-wide system of free public schools, 
with the exception of North Carolina and, it seems only fair 
to add, Louisiana, although in the case of Louisiana a small 
percentage of the cost of education continued to be met by 
tuition fees. There were, however, many indications in some 
of the other southern states of strong sentiment in favor of 
such a system and in some cases promising beginnings had 
been made, as we have seen. Many of the cities had provided 
free public schools for all white children and exceptional rural 

^ Cubberley, Public Education in the United States, p. 160. 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (i 828-1861) 399 

districts here and there throughout the South had done the 
same. It is probable that the South would have developed 
state-wide systems of free public schools within a short period 
had not the Civil War interrupted natural social evolution in 
that section. It is easily shown that in the East and the West, 
the cities were far ahead of the rural sections in their willing- 
ness to provide free education for all, and in the East and the 
West, as well as in the South, many states allowed cities and 
"union districts" the special privilege of supporting schools 
entirely by taxation long before that policy would have secured 
assent in the open country. As the South was predominantly 
agricultural in its economic life and as its population was 
overwhelmingly rural, the relative slowness of the South in mak- 
ing education altogether free might possibly be ascribed not 
altogether or even mainly to a different social philosophy, but 
largely to the fact that its public policy was controlled by rural 
conservatism. 

The Way of Progress to Mandatory Free Schools. — In 
no other phase of education in the United States is the prin- 
ciple of community independence and self-government shown 
more clearly than in the contest to make the schools free and 
supported entirely out of public money. Much of the legisla- 
tion that led up to free schools was permissive. A law might 
be passed giving townships the right to tax themselves for the 
support of schools if a majority of the voters so ordered. Spe- 
cial districts might be created for the purpose of maintaining 
free schools if the communities composing such districts agreed 
to the arrangement, and only when a sufficiently large part 
of the population of a state was already maintaining free 
schools could a mandatory law for the state as a whole be 
curried, or if carried be enforced. 

The earliest instance of state-wide provision of free schools 
was the case of Massachusetts, where this was made legally 
necessary by the law of 1827; but in Massachusetts long be- 
fore that date, free schools supported entirely out of local 
taxation had become all but universal. Pennsylvania passed 
a law in 1834 which allowed any school district in the state to 



400 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

make its schools free, promising state aid for all districts com- 
plying with the law. At the same time any district that did 
not desire to comply with the law was empowered to continue 
in its old ways, but in that event it received no state aid. In 
1848 the system of free schools was made mandatory for the 
entire state after 1105 out of 1249 districts had accepted the 
terms of the free school law of 1834. In New York a refer- 
endum was held in 1849 on the question whether or not the 
schools should be free and a popular majority was returned in 
favor of free schools, but in the following year a second refer- 
endum on the same question greatly reduced the majority of 
the free school supporters. In the evenly divided state of 
public opinion the legislature played safe. It allowed the con- 
tinued use of "rate-bills" for the support of schools, but in- 
creased the amount of state aid to local authorities so as to 
encourage the local authorities to eliminate the school fees. 
At the same time it provided for "union free school districts," 
consisting of any number of independent school districts that 
might desire to unite for the purpose of maintaining free and 
improved schools. It was only in 1867 that the legislature 
abolished the rate-bill system of maintenance and compelled 
all local authorities to maintain schools that were entirely free. 
The same gradual development of the free school idea that 
we have seen in Pennsylvania and New York occurred in all 
the other states, until by the time of the Civil War practically 
all the states of the East and the West were very close to a 
free school system. Vermont disallowed the use of rate-bills 
in 1850. In the same year the new state constitution of Ohio 
made the same provision, but legal actions and court decisions 
delayed its realization until 1867. Illinois made the schools 
free in 1856. By the beginning of the Civil War the cause of 
free schools was all but won in the East and the West, and 
within a few years after its close, free elementary education 
became the universal practice. 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (i 828-1861) 401 

The Extension of the Elementary School Upward 

In this section it is proposed to consider the development of 
what is generally spoken of as secondary education, or of 
schools of a rank higher than elementary. The caption for 
the section has been chosen with specific intent, because it is 
possible to appreciate the true inwardness of the American 
high school only when we understand it as the extension upward 
of the common elementary school. In our study of European 
countries, we have seen that secondary education historically 
has been a thing apart from the schools of the people. It has 
served a different constituency and led to a different way of 
life. It has implied a certain degree of wealth and a certain 
social position on the part of those who were to enjoy its ad- 
vantages. Moreover, it has been controlled as a separate de- 
partment of administration and governed by separate laws. In 
the United States, on the contrary, that which we call secondary 
education today, has developed gradually, as local conditions 
have permitted, out of the common school of the "three R's." It 
has been maintained out of the same resources and governed by 
the same authorities as those which have administered and sup- 
ported the common elementary school. It has served the needs 
of the children of all the people without distinction of purse 
or family tree. Moreover, it has been a regular catch-bag of 
educational purposes, from poor boy's finishing school to 
preparatory school for higher and professional education. 

The Early High School in Massachusetts. — The nature 
of the American high school is admirably exhibited in the 
Massachusetts School Law of 1827. To call it the high school 
law of 1827 would be somewhat of a misnomer, for the same 
law provided, as will be seen, for elementary schools as well 
as for those of a higher grade. The significant portions of the 
law in this connection are as follows: 

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives 
in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the 
same, that each town or district within this Commonwealth, 
containing fifty families, or householders, shall be provided with 



402 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

a teacher or teachers of good morals, to instruct children in 
orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, 
arithmetic, and good behavior, for such term of time as shall 
be equivalent to six months for one school in each year; and 
every town or district containing one hundred families or 
householders, shall be provided with such teacher or teachers 
for such term of time as shall be equivalent to eighteen months 
for one school in each year. And every city, town, or district 
containing five hundred families or householders, shall be pro- 
vided with such teacher or teachers for such term of time as 
shall be equivalent to twenty-four months for one school in 
each year, and shall also be provided with a master of good 
morals, competent to instruct, in addition to the branches of 
learning aforesaid, the history of the United States, bookkeep- 
ing by single entry, geometry, surveying, and algebra ; and 
shall employ such master to instruct a school, in such city, 
town, or district, for the benefit of all the inhabitants thereof 
at least ten months in each year, exclusive of vacations, in 
such convenient place, or alternately at such places in such 
city, town, or district, as the said inhabitants, at their meeting 
in March or April, annually, shall determine; and in every 
city, or town, containing four thousand inhabitants, such mas- 
ter shall be competent in addition to all the foregoing branches, 
to instruct the Latin and Greek languages, history, rhetoric, 
and logic." ^ 

The law just quoted provided for three grades of schools: 
(a) common elementary schools; (6) a higher school in which 
only English branches and other subjects of everyday use- 
fulness were to be taught; and (c) a still more advanced 
school in which, in addition to the subjects taught in the school 
of the second grade, Latin and Greek, history, rhetoric, and 
logic were to be taught. The lowest grade of school might be 
compared with the primary school of France or the German 
folk school. The second grade assimilates closely to the French 
higher primary school as established in 1833 (see p. S2f.). The 

^ Laws of the State of Massachusetts, January Session, 1827, Chapter 
CXLIII, Sections 1, 19, 21. 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (i 828-1861) 403 

highest grade, in so far as it offered the instruction that served 
as the preparation for college entrance, corresponded in at 
least some of their functions to the European secondary schools. 
All three grades of school were placed under the management 
of the same local authorities. They were supported out of the 
same taxes. They were open without distinction to all the 
inhabitants. They were free. 

The Law of 1827 assessed the school obligations of the 
local authorities on the basis of population, which is a rough 
and ready measure of financial resources as well as of educa- 
tional needs. The law exacted of every community the pro- 
vision of educational advantages for its children to the extent 
of its ability. Where a common school was the best that it 
could be expected to provide, that alone was asked. Whore 
a classical school was possible, that was demanded. And where 
the full range of educational opportunity could be provided, 
the pupil's completion of the course depended only upon his 
ability, his industry, and his freedom from the necessity of 
earning a living. 

The development of classes more advanced than those of 
the elementary schools took place in close connection with the 
improvement of the system of grading pupils. Naturally this 
first occurred in the cities, where it was early recognized as 
being more efficient to place all children who had reached ap- 
proximately the same degree of advancement in separate schools 
instead of continuing to instruct all grades of children in the 
same school. From this point it was an easy transition to the 
classification of pupils in each school on the basis of their 
school achievements. 

Tendency to Extend Common Schools at the Top. — 
During this early period, there was little or no control by state 
authorities over the course of study as followed in local com- 
munities. In some instances during this period, a minimum re- 
quirement as to subjects taught was made in state laws, but the 
required subjects had generally, by the time the law was passed, 
become the common practice of the best schools. There was 
a constant tendency for the various localities to extend their 



404 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

systems at the top through the provision of classes in subjects 
that might be of general educational value or of specific prac- 
tical utility. Thomas H. Burrovves, the State Superin- 
tendent of Public Instruction for Pennsylvania, said in 1862 
that the theory of that state in respect to education was that 
a common school should be provided "wherever a sufficient 
number of pupils can be collected together to constitute a 
day school for rudimentary training, and as soon as circum- 
stances will permit, the same common schools so graded that 
the highest in the series shall fit the students for the general 
pursuits of life, or for admission into college." ^ The Penn- 
sylvania theory as stated by Superintendent Burrowes may well 
be taken as the theory of the relation between the elementary 
and the higher schools everywhere throughout the nation. 

The fact that the high school represented simply an exten- 
sion upward of the elementary school is indicated clearly in 
the mass of special school legislation and in the language of 
laws creating high schools, as passed during this period. A 
good case in point is the law passed in 1847 by the Ohio legis- 
lature for the benefit of the City of Akron, by which the school 
directors of that city were empowered to provide a graded 
school system, including "a central grammar school," which 
was, by whatever name it was called, a high school. In 1848 
a general law extended the privileges which had been granted 
to Akron, to every incorporated town or city in the state, when- 
ever two-thirds of the voters should petition the city council 
in favor of such a graded and extended school system. In 
Iowa a law passed in 1849 authorized the formation of "higher 
grades" in schools, and in 1857 a new law gave towns and 
cities the privilege of providing graded school systems "in- 
cluding schools in which languages other than English might 
be taught." A Minnesota law of 1853 authorized the creation 
by public school authorities of higher or grammar school 
classes. In the same year the Union Free School Law of 
New York allowed any union free school district to establish 
"secondary departments" in connection with the graded ele- 
' Wickersham, The History of Education in Pennsylvania. 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 405 

mentary schools. A Pennsylvania law of 1854 authorized any 
district to establish "graded schools and the study of the 
higher branches." 

Such examples might be multiplied, but it would seem that 
sufficient evidence has already been adduced to show tiiat the 
provision of high schools as part of the public school system 
in the United States was simply an extension of the activity 
which led to the creation of the common schools. There was 
not, during this period, any definite connotation of the term 
high school, for that was a development which took place at 
a later time. Any school that represented an extension of 
educational opportunity beyond the elementary schools could 
be described as a high school, whether it covered one, or two, 
or more years of school work, and whether that work included 
foreign languages or not. 

The academy was described in the previous chapter as the 
predominant secondary school of the early national period. As 
far as its administration and curriculum are concerned, this 
institution underwent little change during the years 1828 to 
1 86 1, and in point of numbers, as compared with the high 
school, it easily retained first place. 

The Training of Teachers. — The period which we have 
taken as closing with the outbreak of the Civil War saw con- 
siderable progress in the matter of teacher training, but the 
greater development of teacher training has occurred since that 
time. In 1823 Samuel R. Hall opened a private school that 
was primarily intended for the training of teachers at Concord, 
Vermont. The curriculum of this school was that of a typical 
academy with courses in the Art of Teaching added. A few 
other private schools of the same sort were opened in the New 
England states within a few years. In 1839 two similar schools 
were set in operation under state auspices in Massachusetts, 
and in 1840 a third. By i860, twelve state and six private 
rormal schools had been opened. 

The main burden of teacher preparation during this period 
in so far as there was any special training at all for the pur- 
suit of teaching, was carried on in connection with academies, 



4o6 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

The State of New York in 1827 made special appropriations 
to academies to promote the training of teachers, and in 1834 
provided state aid to one academy in each judicial district 
for the training of teachers for the common schools. In 1843, 
when such aid was discontinued, the bounty of the State of 
Pennsylvania was being extended to nine colleges, sixty-four 
academies, and thirty-seven female seminaries. In some in- 
stances the condition for such aid was laid down that the 
institution should pay attention to the preparation of teachers. 
In general, the academies accepted the training of teachers as 
part of their function, but the professional elements of the 
curriculum were extremely limited, methods of teaching being 
little stressed, and subject-matter receiving far the greater 
share of attention.^ 

Educational Influences of the New Immigration 

At the beginning of the American nation, the population 
was predominantly English. The Scotch Highlanders and 
Ulstermen, the latter commonly being known as Scotch-Irish, 
composed about one-sixth of the population on the eve of the 
Revolution. There were a few thousand French Huguenots and 
less than a hundred thousand Germans, who were settled mainly 
in central and eastern Pennsylvania. There were also small 
numbers of Dutch, Swedish, and other nationalities. With 
the exception of the Pennsylvania Germans, who had main- 
tained their own language and many of their customs, the 
population by the end of the second or third decade of Ameri- 
can independence had been amalgamated into a distinctly 
American people. 

From the outbreak of the Revolution until the thirties, im- 
migration had fallen off to only a small fraction of its former 
volume, but at that time a rush of homeseekers from foreign 
lands began that soon introduced an element of heterogeneity 

^ For a good account of the early history of teacher training in the 
United States, see Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teach- 
ing, Bulletin No. 14, The Professional Preparation of Teachers for 
American Public Schools, by Bagley and others, Chapter III, "Origin 
and Growth of Normal Schools." 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 407 

into the previously homogeneous American population. In 
the period preceding the Civil War, the great majority of the 
immigrants came from Ireland and Germany. The tide of 
Irish immigration had set in strongly by 1830, and continued 
to increase until 1845. The flood was reached in the period 
between 1846 and 1855, when, owing to famine and rebellion 
in Ireland, more than one and a quarter millions of Irish sought 
homes within the United States. The greater proportion of 
these settled down in the cities and towns of the eastern sea- 
board, and found their places in the industrial armies which 
were called for by the expansion of the East as a manufac- 
turing and commercial section. The German immigration of 
the period before the Civil War reached its height during the 
ten years 1846-1855, with an influx of over a million. The 
total foreign-born population of the United States in 1850 
was 2,800,000 out of a total of about 23,000,000. In i860 
it was about 5,400,000 out of about 31,000,000. 

The Religious Difficulty Raised. — The Irish were almost 
all Catholic in religion, and their leaders desired to take care 
of the education of the children belonging to the Catholic 
Church in schools maintained and conducted by the Church. 
They were pretty generally opposed to having their children 
attend the public schools on the ground that the public schools 
were unable to give the proper religious training and instruc- 
tion. More specifically they objected to the reading of the 
King James version of the Bible as a part of the school exer- 
cises, because they regarded it as a sectarian book. The 
leaders of the Church insisted furthermore that, as they were 
providing in their parochial schools for the education of a 
considerable part of the school population, they should receive 
their proportionate share of the money appropriated by 'the 
public authorities, state and local, for the aid of public edu- 
cation. This demand of the Catholics was nothing new nor 
unreasonable at that time, for as has been said before, during 
the early years of our national life, public authorities had 
commonly given aid to private and religious schools. 

The first definite contest that developed over the question of 



4o8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

public aid to denominational schools came in New York City. 
The Public School Society had been permitted in 1828 to 
levy a local tax for the support of its educational efforts, which 
could be interpreted as public support of sectarian schools since 
the schools of the Society gave moral and religious instruction, 
although it was intended to be non-sectarian. The Catholic 
and other sects applied for aid from the city for schools main- 
tained by them. The request of the Catholics was granted 
and those of the other sects were not. Then there began a 
burning contest over the entire issue, with certain Protestant 
denominations supporting the Catholics in their effort to 
secure a division of the school funds on sectarian lines, and 
others united against such a policy. The final decision of the 
legislature taken in 1842 was to the effect that no private 
or sectarian school should receive aid from state or local 
taxation or subsidy. 

If in New York City the issue had been whether or not the 
development of public education should take place along de- 
nominational lines, a few years later the question came up in 
Massachusetts of reversing the long established policy of 
public education. Here also the religious question was not a 
new one, as the break-up of the Congregational Church in 
that state into the Unitarian and the Orthodox groups, had 
precipitated a violent discussion over the nature and extent 
of the religious instruction to be included as part of the 
stated school exercises. As long as the Congregational Church 
in its early form controlled all public life in Massachusetts, 
there was no question as to the place of religious instruction 
in the schools, but under conditions of religious division, the 
tendency had been to curtail religious instruction and to elimi- 
nate everything that savored of sectarianism. The Massa- 
chusetts law of 1827 had definitely forbidden the use of sec- 
tarian books in the schools. The Orthodox party had resisted 
the secularizing tendency with great energy and bitterness; 
but when the demand came from the Catholics that they should 
receive their share of the state funds for the separate education 
of their children in parochial schools, the two factions of the 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 409 

Congregational Church united to oppose this threat to the 
public school system. Feeling ran high upon the matter, and 
the question was finally settled by the passage in 1855 of a 
constitutional amendment which provided that all public funds, 
whether state or local, could be used only for the maintenance 
of regularly organized and conducted public schools. 

The agitation over the division of public school funds and 
the reading of the Protestant Bible in the schools became an 
important issue of national politics. The Know-Nothing 
Party, making platform pledges against sectarian schools in 
the election of 1855, carried a half-dozen states on the general 
issue of "America for Americans." The practical result of all 
the discussion was the passage of laws by state legislatures that 
forbade the division of public funds among sectarian groups 
for educational purposes. A number of states had made con- 
stitutional provisions to that effect before the Civil War, 
and that policy has since that time had universal adoption 
throughout the country. 

The Problem of Foreign Language Schools. — The lan- 
guage difficulty occurred frequently during this period when, 
in the interests of assimilating foreign population groups, it 
was proposed that all instruction in the schools should be in 
the English language. The Pennsylvania school law of 1834 
made it a condition of receiving state aid that the schools main- 
tained by a district should use English as the language of in- 
struction, and for this reason, among others, the Pennsylvania 
German communities long and stoutly resisted the passage of 
the law or the acceptance of its terms. The newer western 
states possessed large, and in many cases, compact foreign 
populations, chiefly German. In those states the language 
question came up again and again. The foreign groups de- 
sired the use of their own languages in the schools of their 
community. The larger community, the state, opposed this 
on the grounds of public policy. In some of the states the issue 
was not definitely settled until the entry of the United States 
into the World War. 



410 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

The American School System by 1861 

In the thirty-odd years ensuing upon the first election of 
Andrew Jackson and concluding with the outbreak of the great 
intersectional war, important developments had taken place 
in the United States with respect to education. The decision 
had been reached in East and West that the provision of 
schools was a public obligation. The South had not so com- 
pletely adopted this conviction and practice, but in that sec- 
tion as well the cause of public education was receiving stronger 
support year by year. It had been all but determined that 
where public schools were maintained they should be free to 
all children. The possibility of adopting a denominational 
system of schools had been decisively rejected in the fifties. 

With respect to the administration of schools, local authori- 
ties had been established in practically every state. The con- 
ditions of sparse settlement and difficulties of communication 
and transportation tended to give the local school boards or 
committees almost exclusive authority over the little domain of 
the district school. The states, however, were increasing their 
contributions to the support of the schools and had made the 
beginnings of state supervision and control, mainly through 
the creation of the office of state superintendent of public in- 
struction and the establishment of state boards of education. 
In the office of county superintendent a connecting link was 
gradually being established between the state superintendent 
and the district local authorities. 

Localities favored by larger population and greater financial 
resources had developed systems of graded schools and had 
in many cases added one or more years of instruction in sub- 
jects higher than the elementary branches for the further edu- 
cation of their children. The newer states had applied the 
federal township grants for university purposes to the establish- 
ment of higher institutions of learning under state administra- 
tion, although the state legislatures had not as yet developed 
the large generosity in the support of such schools which has 
since that time become characteristic. The state universities 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 411 

in respect to resources and academic offerings were much like 
the denominational and local colleges and universities. As 
in the earlier period, higher education, except in the state uni- 
versities, continued to be independent of any control or super- 
vision on the part of any public authority. 

In estimating the general character of American education as 
it had developed by the time of the Civil War, one is at once 
struck by its originality. Of the educational practice of any 
European country, it more closely resembled that of England, 
although by 1861, the United States had all but passed be- 
yond denominational controversy and decided squarely for a 
non-sectarian public school system supported out of public 
funds and controlled by public officials. In the matter of local 
initiative and its correlate, the absence of close supervision and 
control exercised by central education authorities, American 
practice closely resembled the early traditions of English gov- 
ernment. Religious denominations and private parties were 
free to conduct elementary schools without any interference 
whatever on the part of the state. Even when the law had 
made compulsory the maintenance of public schools, local 
authorities continued free to follow their own devices with ref- 
erence to the management of their schools. Examination and 
certification of teachers by local authorities for small areas con- 
tinued to be the rule. Little or no control had as yet come to 
be exercised by the state in the matter of course of study or 
textbooks. Such central offices of administration as the states 
had developed were rudimentary and limited in their functions 
largely to the distribution of state school subsidies on the basis 
of pupil or general population. The state offices were not 
sufficiently manned to undertake any close supervision over 
the activities of the local authorities, and, outside of the 
State of New York, little control of local authorities was 
contemplated. There was a close resemblance of American 
to English educational practice in the large amount of inde- 
pendence given to secondary and higher schools. In the cities 
where the newer type of secondary school was being developed 
as a public school, practically no state control was exercised as 



412 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

to curriculum or qualifications of teachers. The academy, ex- 
cept in New York State, was almost strictly a private concern, 
conducted on a state charter as any other business. In the 
field of higher education, with the exception of the state uni- 
versities with their state boards of trustees, the various private 
and denominational interests enjoyed the same freedom as 
they did in the case of such elementary or secondary schools 
as they maintained. 

The resemblance of the American system of education, if 
system it can be called, to the educational practices of Eng- 
land, stopped short, however, of the strong social caste pre- 
possessions of the latter country. In England the activities of 
the Voluntary Associations had been largely in the interest of 
the education of the "children of the independent poor," and 
such contributions as Parliament was making to elementary 
education were almost exclusively devoted to the aid of Volun- 
tary effort. The state in connection with labor legislation 
had made the education of young children engaged in factory 
occupation compulsory and the poor laws had taken care of 
the elementary instruction of the children of paupers. Per- 
sons of even moderate means continued to regard the education 
of their children as their private concern and resented as a 
form of state charity any public invasion of that domain. In 
the United States, on the contrary, the conviction had won 
out before the Civil War period that public education of all 
was a civil function to which no stigma of pauperism could 
properly be attached. The schools maintained out of the 
public taxes were the schools of all for all, and the children 
of the rich sat with the children of the poor without invidious 
distinction. The term public elementary school was a designa- 
tion of the school age and academic achievement of the pupils 
and not a designation of a peculiar form of support or of the 
social origin and economic status of the pupils. 

In the matter of secondary education, the same conditions 
of equality spread with the development of publicly supported 
high schools. The old local academies had welcomed at small 
expense children of all sorts of social and economic back- 



SECTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY (1828-1861) 413 

ground. The high school, as it increased in numbers, was the 
continuation of the local academy under public auspices. In 
the thirties and forties the great protagonists of public edu- 
cation had seen a danger in the growing prevalence of the 
private secondary school, and the tendency in that direction 
was checked before it had made great progress. Secondary 
education, as was true of elementary education, came during 
the period under consideration to be the name for a certain 
stage of progress in terms of academic proficiency, and not, as 
in England and other European countries, the peculiar per- 
quisite of a social caste. 

Contrast between American School Practices and 
Those of Prussia. — Having carried out the comparison of 
American education with that of England, it is unnecessary 
to exert a great deal of effort in pointing out how different 
American school traditions were from those of Prussia. In 
that country education had been conceived of and organized 
as a means of social control. The education interest was 
given a place in the King!s Cabinet, and from that high posi- 
tion it was controlled down to its most humble office and 
function. The supervision of the national office over the 
affairs of the universities was immediate and vigorous, and thus 
was insured the purity of political and social philosophy at its 
source. A hierarchy for the administration of secondary and 
primary education, linked at the top with the King^s personal 
government, standardized curriculum and teaching personnel, 
so that the strong hand of the central authority controlled in 
general spirit and in specific detail the conduct of the schools. 
Where private schools existed, they were compelled to come 
up to the standards set for the public schools. While differing 
in respect to all these conditions, the most striking point of 
variation from the Prussian system which the American schools 
exhibited was in the absence of caste distinctions. In Prussia 
the folk schools were the schools of the common people. They 
were for the children of the people the end of the academic 
road. By an effective system of academic, as well as economic 
insulation, the child of the common family was practically 



414 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

barred from the benefits of secondary education. Even the 
teachers in the folk schools were a class apart, prepared for 
their occupation in schools from which ingress to the universi- 
ties was impossible. How different from that was the American 
common public school! Assuredly most of that which it has 
been said was borrowed from Prussia must have been very 
shortly returned with the appropriate formula, "not suitable to 
our fundamental social philosophy and political institutions." 

ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical Background. — Beard and Beard, History of 
the United States; West, History of the American People; Dodd, Ex- 
pansion and Conflict; Dodd, The Cotton Kingdom. 

Education Sources. — There are no available collections of source 
material for the period. The volumes of Barnard's Journal of Educa- 
tion are invaluable, as are also the Reports of the Massachusetts State 
Board of Education and other reports of state education officials. 

Secondary Accounts. — Cubberley, Public Education in the United 
States; Brown, E. E., The Making of Our Middle Schools; Inglis, The 
Rise of the High School in Massachusetts; Brown, S. W., The Secu- 
larization of American Education; Cyclopedia of Education, articles on 
education in the various states; Maddox, The Free School Idea in 
Virginia before the Civil War; Martin, The Evolution of the Massa- 
chusetts Public School System. 



CHAPTER XVII 

MATERIAL GROWTH AND CULTURAL UNIFI- 
CATION (1861 TO ABOUT 1890) 

It has been frequently enough pointed out that the attempt 
to divide off the evolution of a nation or a society into periods 
introduces considerable inaccuracy under the guise of exacti- 
tude. The transitions that take place in a social order are ac- 
complished by the gradual heaping up of almost unnoticed 
small changes, which have begun long before some cataclysmic 
event has definitely registered the existence of a new condi- 
tion. In designating the years between 1861 and 1890 as a 
period of American history, one is placed on the defensive to 
a greater degree than is common when an historical period 
is marked off, for the changes that began in the period imme- 
diately following the Civil War have been so gradual and so 
interrelated that when a larger perspective of history is taken 
some generations hereafter, the entire span of years from the 
Civil War up to the present may appear to be a single epoch ex- 
hibiting unitary and indistinguishable characteristics. 

There is, however, nothing sacred about the division of time, 
and the person who attempts to write history is privileged to 
make pretty much the classification of events that serves his 
purpose. From such a point of view there seems to be real 
utility in the separation of the thirty years which followed the 
outbreak of the Civil War from the thirty years that have just 
elapsed. No striking change occurred at the year 1890, which 
divides those periods, and no great social or educational condi- 
tion is seen as perfectly and completely realized at that time. 
But there were marked differences between our national life 
in the generation which followed the Civil War and in the 
generation which saw our country engaged in the great war 

415 



41 6 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

against the Central European alliance. It is easily seen that 
during the later period a new social order had come into being, 
with new experiences and new purposes and with a largely 
altered equipment of political and social controls. A hitherto 
unknown national solidarity had been achieved. A new eco- 
nomic life had been evolved with its special problems of man- 
agement and adjustment. Our contacts and interrelationships 
with foreign countries had multiplied and become more intri- 
cate, until further denial of our place in international policy 
was self-destructive, and, therefore, impossible. We had turned 
from the rough work of exploitation of natural resources to 
problems of conservation and reclamation. In the field of 
education as well, the new generation had seen the status of the 
public school and all other educational agencies changed to 
meet the demands of a vastly enlarged vision of their social 
function. 

Economic Prosperity in the North. — The Civil War 
brought about close economic unity between the northern 
West and the northern East. The eastern industrial cities 
needed the grain and other agricultural products of the West, 
while the western farmer had use for the manufactured goods 
of the East. The necessity of producing the materials of 
war drove the wheels of northern industry at ever accelerating 
speed, while at the same time the agricultural production of 
the western states increased by leaps and bounds. The pro- 
tective tariff demands of the industrial East were acceded to 
by the West in return for the adoption of the generous federal 
land policy which that section had been insisting upon in vain 
for thirty years and for a vigorous and munificent policy of 
national aid for internal improvements. The disturbance of 
economic prosperity that was to have been anticipated when 
over a million soldiers were released from the non-productive 
efforts of war and returned to factory and farm, was never 
realized. The liberal conditions under which homesteads were 
granted under the new federal land laws diverted many of the 
discharged soldiers into the virgin farmlands of the western 
prairies. Those who were not thus absorbed in new agricul- 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 417 

tural development were taken back into the busy factories, or 
were utilized in the tremendous railroad projects which during 
the generation following the war wove a network of steel over 
the entire land. 

Increase of Immigration. — Not only were the demands of 
industry and the new agricultural expansion adequate to ab- 
sorb without embarrassment the soldiers returned from the 
war, but also to find place for over 2,300,000 immigrants dur- 
ing the decade 1861-1870. In the next ten years following, 
the number of immigrants to our shores increased to over 
2,800,000, while in the decade 1 881-1890, the number reached 
the stupendous total of over 5,240,000. By far the greater 
part of these newcomers found work in the factories of the 
cities, in the great railway construction works, in the mines or 
in lumber camps, or in the free homesteads of the western 
states. Only a small fraction, however, of the total immigra- 
tion of this period found its way into the South. 

The Annihilation of Distance. — One of the great changes 
that took place in the United States in the thirty years fol- 
lowing the outbreak of the Civil War was the spread of a vast 
network of railway and telegraph lines from the Atlantic Ocean 
to the Pacific and from Canada to the Gulf. In i860 there were 
only about 30,000 miles of railroad in the entire country. In 
1890, when the peak of railway construction had been reached, 
there were over 163,000 miles. Great trunk lines under one 
management had been formed out of smaller links and finally 
gigantic systems covering vast areas and practically controlling 
transportation within those areas had been consolidated under 
the control of single boards of directors. The federal govern- 
ment and the individual states had early realized the economic 
importance of the railroads for opening up new areas for 
settlement, thereby increasing population and agricultural 
production. They realized also how important the railways 
were for the development of a many-sided industrial life. Ac- 
cordingly both the federal and state governments had shown 
open-handed generosity in their financial aid for railway con- 
struction. Almost as soon, however, as the railways were built, 



41 8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

it was seen that they possessed a dangerous degree of power. 
They could hold up the shipper for rates that practically 
amounted to confiscation and they could charge the traveller 
what they pleased. The seventies and eighties saw determined 
efforts on the part of state legislatures to curb the rapacity of 
the railroads, but with little success. The railway system cov- 
ered many states, whereas the jurisdiction of the state legisla- 
ture ceased at the borders of a particular state. A new period 
in railway legislation began with the recognition of the inability 
of single states to cope with the railways and the passage of 
the act of Congress creating an Interstate Commerce Com- 
mission in 1887. 

Political Significance of Rapid Communication, — The 
construction of railways was paralleled by the building of 
telegraph lines. These two agencies together have had, as is 
obvious, a tremendous influence upon every phase of our 
economic development since the Civil War. The growth of 
industrial production, the tendencies which that production 
followed, the increase of population in general and particularly 
its concentration in cities, the change in agriculture from sub- 
sistence to commercial farming and the accompanying changes 
in the activities of the farm home, — these are only some 
of the changes in our economic life which are directly de- 
pendent upon the improvement of means of transportation 
and communication through railway and telegraph. In im- 
portant respects the nature of our political life has been pro- 
foundly affected by the annihilation of distance which these 
agencies accomplished. It is inconceivable that a vast conti- 
nental area like the United States could be a cultural and 
political unit unless the people composing its population should 
be in constant and close communication with one another. 
Cultural unity depends upon common experience. Countless 
human beings might inhabit the great spaces of the Mississippi 
Basin, the Rocky Mountain Highlands, the Pacific Coast, the 
Gulf Plain, and the Atlantic Seaboard, but unless there were 
a constant exchange of common ideas among them and the 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 419 

daily discussion of common problems they would not consti- 
tute a nation. When the citizen of New Orleans, of Chicago, 
of Denver, of Seattle, of Boston, each reads in his daily paper 
about the same occurrences, scans the same box-scores, fol- 
lows simultaneously the acts of Congress and the decisions of 
the President, weighs editorial discussion of the same issues, 
they are in a very real sense members of the same community. 
And when weekly periodicals published in Philadelphia or 
New York reach their subscribers all over the country on the 
same day, or when a trip from New York to San Francisco 
is less hazardous and time-consuming than the one from New 
York to Pittsburgh was in 1830, the possibility of a common 
culture and of the sense of fellow-citizenship are secured. Of 
course all modern civilization is dependent on rapid transit 
and long distance communication, but of no country is this 
more true than it is of the United States. A single nationality 
covering the present territory of the United States under the 
conditions of transportation and communication which ex- 
isted when the Constitution was adopted would have been an 
impossibility. The change in those conditions which took 
place in the first thirty years following the Civil War made 
possible and greatly increased the feeling of nationality among 
the citizens of the states. The generation which followed the 
Civil War saw the national government displace the government 
of the states as the all-important political bond of their 
existence. 

The Growth of Industry. — The natural growth of manu- 
facturing in the United States was greatly accelerated during 
the Civil War and in the decades following by the imposition 
of high tariffs for the double purpose of raising revenue and 
protecting home industry. In i860 the total value of manufac- 
tures in the United States was something less than $1,900,- 
000,000. In 1894 it was $9,500,000,000. In i860 the prod- 
ucts manufactured out of iron and steel had a value of 
$36,500,000; in 1890, $479,000,000. Within that same period 
the value of the textile manufactures had doubled. Rapid 



42 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

and colossal development had taken place in the production 
of flour, meat, lumber, clothing, boots and shoes, and a long 
list of Qther commodities. 

Industrial Prosperity Largely Based on a Wealth of 
Raw Materials. — Much of the prosperity of American indus- 
trial life during this period was due to the ingenuity which 
improved machinery and increased production at lowered cost. 
Much also was owing to the genius which the American in- 
dustrial manager exhibited in the invention of ways and means 
of handling large quantities of heavy material for mass pro- 
duction. But fundamental in the staggering total of the output 
of factories was the abundance of raw material which was 
available for use. The period between the Civil War and 
1890 saw special development of the coarser forms of manu- 
facturing — the working over of raw materials into the first 
stages of transmutation. Forest, mine, and farm contributed 
of their native wealth to the industrial prosperity of the 
country. A generation was reaping the harvest of a million 
years, without thought of economy or conservation. 

Industrial Combinations. — The expensiveness of compe- 
tition among powerful companies led during the eighties to 
large industrial combinations. A number of formerly compet- 
ing companies would consolidate their holdings and combine 
their operations under a common board of trustees in the in- 
terest of capturing the entire supply of the commodity in 
which they dealt and thus controlling the market. Powerful 
companies thus formed were able to ruin their competitors 
who refused to enter that "trust" either by ruinous price wars 
or by other means, such as gaining rebates on shipping charges 
from railways. In many respects, the formation of trusts or 
similar large combinations favorably affected trade develop- 
ment, for in some industries the initial cost of the most eco- 
nomical methods of production would have been prohibitive to 
a large number of competing concerns, but was easily within 
the means of a powerful group of concerns operating under 
unified control. The trusts, like the great railway combinations, 
operated in many states; and hence, as in the case of the rail- 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 421 

ways, the state legislatures were unable to apply to them 
restrictive legislation and so to control their operations. The 
passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890 by the Con- 
gress of the United States is another of the indications that 
the beginning of a new era in the control of industrial combina- 
tions had begun. 

The Increase of Urban Population and Its Social 
Influence. — Between i860 and 1890 the population of the 
United States increased from 31,500,000 to 63,000,000. In 
i860, 1 6. 1 per cent of the population lived in cities of 8000 
or more population, while in 1890 the population of cities of 
that size had increased to 29 per cent of the whole. In con- 
sidering the rapid growth of cities during this period we should 
have in mind also the fact that the bulk of the immigrant 
population found its way to the great industrial centers where 
they provided cheap unskilled labor in large quantities for 
factories and public works. As has been true in other Western 
countries, the development of factory industry in the United 
States saw cruel exploitation of the worker. Long hours, bad 
working conditions, no insurance against industrial accident, 
and unrestricted employment of women and children were only 
some of the disadvantages under which the working population 
suffered. The years before 1890 saw a great increase in the 
power of organized labor as manifested in numerous industrial 
strikes, some of them successful. They also saw the begin- 
nings of legislation intended to soften the cruelty of unregu- 
lated commercial competition. Massachusetts had led the 
way in the matter of labor legislation, having limited the work- 
ing hours of children in 1866 to eight per day.^ In 1869 that 
state established a bureau of labor statistics. Before 1880 
factory inspection had been provided for and the labor of 
women and children under eighteen years of age had been 
limited to sixty hours a week. 

Most of the industrial states followed Massachusetts before 
1890 in limiting the employment of children, but in many 
cases strict enforcement of the labor laws followed far be- 

' Changed in 1867 to ten. 



42 2 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

hind their enactment. Labor legislation affecting the adult 
worker occurred in general after that date. 

Low Level of Public Morality. — The period which fol- 
lowed the Civil War is pretty generally described by the his- 
torians as the time when public morality reached the lowest 
level which it has ever attained in the history of our country. 
To this condition many of the developments described above 
contributed. Lavish generosity in the gift of public lands led 
to dishonest manipulation of homestead rights. Unstinted aid 
on the part of state legislatures and Congress to the railroad 
companies had its reward for the poor, but dishonest, law- 
maker in the form of graft. Members of Congress, even mem- 
bers of Presidents' Cabinets, were shown to have sold their 
votes and influence to railroad interests, and one candidate 
for the Presidency never succeeded in altogether clearing his 
name from a similar charge. 

The contest among the great railways for rights of way or 
terminal facilities in the rapidly growing cities at once made 
them the prey of venal city officials and led to wholesale cor- 
ruption of those officials on the part of the railways. The long- 
drawn-out contest which state legislatures engaged in to con- 
trol confiscatory rates and other unsatisfactory transporta- 
tion conditions was a situation which easily induced the rail- 
ways to attempt to purchase immunity. The legislatures of a 
number of states during this period have been described as 
being "owned" by certain great railroads. The great railway 
lines were parties to the unfair system of rebates by means 
of which certain great industrial combinations secured decisive 
trade advantages over their competitors. The great trusts were 
also targets of state legislation during this period and they, 
too, found it profitable to maintain lobbyists plentifully sup- 
plied with money for too often compliant senators and repre- 
sentatives. 

The rapid growth of the cities during this period brought 
about the necessity for extensive public works in the form of 
streets, sewers, reservoirs, parks, street railways, and lighting 
systems, which afforded large dishonest gains to such fore- 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 423 

sighted contractors as had "seen" the proper municipal authori- 
ties. The large influx of foreigners to the cities affected the 
situation in that it introduced a large voting population that 
was capable of being cheaply bribed and easily led. Politics 
became a profitable business and it was soon organized as such. 
The political boss came into existence to deliver the vote and 
insure even that honesty which must exist among successful 
political thieves. The large industrial corporations, of which 
the railroads were chief, came to deal directly with the bosses, 
who in turn distributed profitable opportunities among the 
members of the party machines. Corruption of public officials 
high and low was a commonplace, and wholesale purchase of 
votes at the polls was an established principle of party man- 
agement. From the elections for municipal councils to national 
presidential campaigns, politics was conducted ostensibly for 
the distribution of official places and for the protection of in- 
fluential economic interests. 

Social Energy Largely Devoted to Material Growth. — 
The energies of the North and the West during the generation 
following the Civil War were devoted largely to material 
growth. In the figures which describe the increase of popula- 
tion, the development of Industry, the extension of the network 
of railways, the multiplication of farm production, and the 
growth of cities, we recognize the adolescent growth of a giant. 
But the youthful giant was without much foresight of the fu- 
ture and rather lacking in conscience. He spent his apparently 
limitless patrimony with wastrel abandon. He sowed the 
wild oats of industrial exploitation. He frequented the so- 
ciety of political blacklegs and the smooth corruptionists of big 
business. But nothing that he did seemed to blight his glowing 
health or check his stupendous growth, and with the passage 
of years came self-control and an awakened moral sense. 

Two Nations under One Government. — The economic 
interdependence of the East and the West would have been 
sufficient in itself to bring about a close political union among 
the states which composed those geographical divisions, while 
the influence of the war which they carried on against a com- 



424 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

mon enemy greatly strengthened the influences that led to 
social solidarity. The Civil War for the first time in our his- 
tory created a nation out of those states that were giving un- 
stintedly of their sons and their treasure for the sake of preserv- 
ing the Union. To be sure the nation thus forged in the 
furnace of war was but a part of the entire sisterhood of 
states, for the same influences that operated in binding all of 
the Union states together, created a like unity among the 
Southern states and opened a wide chasm between those sec- 
tions that took a generation to fill. In our discussion of the 
development of nationality in the United States during the 
period of and following the Civil War, we must make more or 
less complete exception of the South. Indeed, it was only with 
the death of most of the Civil War generation on both sides 
and the coming of new political and economic conditions in 
the South, that the Union of the American states was made 
complete. 

Up to the outbreak of the Civil War, political policies and 
the principles of government administration had been largely 
conditioned by sharp sectional differences which had their 
expression in the doctrine of state rights. When all the 
smoldering sectional suspicions and differences had burst out 
into the red flame of war, two nations were almost instan- 
taneously formed, North and South. The Civil War was a 
war between two nations each with its own culture and its own 
economic and political Hfe. When the South lost, it continued 
to be in the eyes of the North for at least twenty years a 
subdued, but unrepentant enemy, while to the South the 
North remained an exultant and insatiable conqueror. 

Increase of Centralization in Government 
For the reason that the North emerged victorious from the 
contest which was to determine whether or not there should 
be two political states where one had existed before, the thread 
of developing nationality is to be found in the political changes 
which took place in Washington. The exigencies of a stub- 
bornly contested war made heavy demands upon the federal 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 425 

administration and it almost immediately took on the char- 
acteristics of a strongly centralized government. The financial 
demands of the war led to large bonding operations with the 
federal treasury as principal, and to the creation of a national 
banking system. The need for soldiers and the principle of 
universal military obligation led to the draft for military 
service. War conditions made advisable the suspension of 
rights of the individual which were guaranteed in the Consti- 
tution. Military necessity led to the participation on the part 
of the federal government in all sorts of matters which had 
previously been regarded as the domain of the states. Con- 
spicuous in this respect and not least among the nationalizing 
agencies of the period was the generous aid given by the 
United States in the building of transcontinental railways. 

The Morrill Land Grant Act. — During the years of the 
war, the principle of expanding federal interests had direct 
expression in the field of education. In 1862 the Morrill 
Land Grant Act was passed which gave to each of the several 
states thirty thousand acres of the public domain for each 
senator and representative in Congress from the state, for 
the maintenance of a college of agriculture and mechanic arts. 
A bill almost identical with the one that became law in 1862 
had been passed by narrow majorities in each house in 1859. 
The support of the bill at that time closely followed political 
lines, the Democrats being opposed principally on the grounds 
that it represented an invasion on the part of the federal gov- 
ernment of rights that were constitutionally reserved to the 
individual states. When the bill came to President Buchanan 
for action, he vetoed it. One of the reasons which he gave for 
his veto was the unconstitutionality of federal participation in 
education. When the Morrill Land Grant Bill was reintro- 
duced in Congress in 1862, it passed by sweeping majorities in 
both houses and was duly signed by President Lincoln. Twen- 
ty-three of the states within five years of the passage of the 
act took advantage of its provisions and established colleges 
of agriculture and mechanic arts either as separate institutions 
or as departments of existing state universities. 



42 6 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

A Federal Department of Agriculture. — The same year 
that saw the passage of the Morrill Land Grant Act saw the 
creation of the federal Department of Agriculture, which was 
even more of an extension of the acknowledged powers of the 
federal government. The seven government departments then 
existent represented functions which were entrusted to the fed- 
eral government by the Constitution, while agriculture was an 
interest which had always been considered as residing in the 
control of the several states. The new department was created 
on the ground that national prosperity and welfare depended on 
the success of agricultural production and that anything that 
so closely affected national welfare was a national concern. 
The friends of the new department declared that the federaV 
government could not use it to control agriculture in the states, 
but only to foster and promote agriculture in the interest cf 
the various states and the nation as a whole. 

A Federal Department of Education. — Five years aftci^ 
the erection of the Department of Agriculture, that is to say 
in 1867, Congress created a Department of Education, "foi 
the purpose of collecting such statistics and facts as shall 
show the condition and progress of education in the several 
States and Territories, and of diffusing such information re- 
specting the organization and management of schools and 
school systems, and methods of teaching as shall aid the people 
of the United States in the establishment and maintenance 
of efficient school systems, and otherwise promote the cause 
of education throughout the country." The act creating the 
Department of Education designated its head as the Commis- 
sioner of Education, provided for clerical assistance, and called 
for an annual report to Congress on the part of the Com- 
missioner. 

As in the case of the Department of Agriculture, the federal 
Department of Education was to exercise no direct control 
over the state governments. It had no supervisory functions, 
it had no authority, it had no money to distribute for the 
acceptance of which it could exact conditions to be fulfilled. 
Such influence as the Department could gain could be exerted 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 427 

only through the moral advantage of a federal office and the 
personal qualities of the Commissioner. It was intended to 
serve as a clearing house of information about school con- 
ditions and educational administration. 

It is easy to overestimate the importance of the steps which 
the federal government took in the sixties in a direction which 
up to that time had been to it forbidden ground. Neither in 
the Land Grant Act, in the creation of a Department of Agri- 
culture, nor in the creation of a Department of Education did 
the federal administration greatly extend its prerogatives. 
The states were allowed to develop their colleges of agriculture 
and mechanic arts according to their own ideas and purposes, 
the only condition being that the land or land scrip appro- 
priated for that purpose by Congress should be honestly ad- 
ministered and strictly accounted for. The law laid down no 
details of curriculum or administration for these new children 
of its generosity and, as a matter of fact, the colleges which 
resulted from it could hardly during the first twenty years of 
their existence be recognized as different from other colleges 
and universities for general education. 

The Department of Education was in 1869 degraded to the 
status of a Bureau in the Department of the Interior, which 
it continues to be today, but during all the years of its exis- 
tence it has done a highly commendable service in the cause of 
education through its collection of the statistics of education 
in the United States and through the reports which it has made 
upon educational conditions in our own and foreign countries. 
The Department of Agriculture has had a much more pros- 
perous history. Almost immediately its efforts were received 
with approbation, its resources and personnel were strength- 
ened and its opportunities for conspicuous public service in- 
creased. As in the case of the Department of Education, it 
enjoyed no power of coercion over any state, but its inde- 
pendent investigations and its central position have given it 
leadership in scientific agriculture and made it the coordinating 
agency for the agricultural studies carried on under the auspices 
of the state governments. 



42 8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

The Freedmen's Bureau. — Not least among the influences 
that led to a notable extension of federal administration during 
the first half of this period was. the peculiar relationship which 
existed between the government of the United States and those 
states which had constituted the Southern Confederacy. Dur- 
ing the last year of the war, a Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, 
and Abandoned Lands was created in the War Department 
with supervision and management of all subjects relating to 
refugees and freedmen. In 1866 the powers of the Bureau 
were extended and more closely defined. A comprehensive 
organization was built up, with a chief commissioner in charge 
and assistant commissioners for each of the Southern States, 
until finally the entire South was organized under a hierarchy 
of Bureau officials. The double purpose which the Bureau 
was intended to fulfill was to provide needy negroes with food, 
shelter, and clothing and to prepare the negro for citizenship 
by means of education. The educational and charitable ac- 
tivities of the Bureau continued until 1872. Its officials co- 
operated with Northern benevolent societies that were inter- 
ested in the organization of schools and churches for the 
negroes and they also extended government aid for negro 
schools. In all, the Bureau supervised the expenditure of 
over six and a half million dollars, which was largely spent in 
educational work. As was to be expected the presence of a 
large alien administrative force aroused intense dislike on the 
part of the Southern whites and constituted one of the elements 
of friction and misunderstanding which for long years kept 
open the chasm between North and South. 

Reconstruction and the South 

In even a more definite way than through the activities of 
the Freedmen's Bureau, the Federal government participated 
in Southern affairs for years following the War. The defeated 
South had accepted the Thirteenth Amendment, which freed 
the slaves, by virtue of necessity, but they determined that the 
white population should continue to govern and that the whites 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 429 

should be protected in the new economic and social relations 
that emancipation would be sure to bring in its train. Con- 
sequently, the state governments in the South as soon as they 
were recognized by the President, proceeded to pass laws, 
known as the "Black Laws," which were designed to absorb 
the shock of a cataclysmic social change. To the Northern 
partisans, however, this legislation was regarded as an effort 
on the part of the South to continue under a new guise the 
condition of negro slavery. Their response to it was the 
passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, which denied to any 
state the right to pass any law which would abridge the civil 
rights of any citizen, which meant any person bom or natu- 
ralized in the United States, including of course the negroes. 
The failure of any state to observe the terms of the amend- 
ment was to be penalized by a reduction of its representation 
in Congress in proportion to the extent of its disfranchisement 
of citizens. The Southern States refused to ratify this amend- 
ment, and the dominant Congressional group responded by 
organizing the South as five conquered provinces, each under 
the supreme authority of a general officer of the United States 
Army .'js The Reconstruction Act of 1867 forced negro suffrage 
upon the South at a time when only six of the Northern States 
gave negroes a like privilege, and provided a military adminis- 
tration that was competent to see that the negroes were al- 
lowed to exercise the right to vote. The organization of new 
governments in the Southern States was carried out under 
military protection. The result was a political revolution. 
Black votes, controlled by unscrupulous Southern whites, or 
"scalawags," and Northern "carpetbaggers," became the new 
basis of political power. The results were what might have 
been expected. Political administration in the South during 
the period of reconstruction under military auspices became a 
travesty upon Anglo-Saxon institutions of government. 

The Hoar Bill. — During this period was introduced the 
first of a series of Congressional bills designed to secure fed- 
eral participation in general education. Representative Hoar, 
pointing out the failure of the South before the War to make 



430 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

anything like adequate provision for universal public educa- 
tion, in 1870 proposed the establishment of a federal system of 
educational aid and control. While the bill was written so as 
to apply to the entire United States, it was specifically designed 
to go into effect in the South. It provided for a system of 
administration centralized in Washington and operating in any 
state that should not by a certain date have provided "for all 
the children within its borders between the ages of six and 
eighteen years, suitable instruction in reading, writing, or- 
thography, arithmetic, geography, and the history of the United 
States." In case such provision should have been made by 
the separate states, the provisions of the bill were not to apply 
to them. But in case of failure of the states to establish sys- 
tems of public schools as contemplated in the bill, the Presi- 
dent was to appoint for each delinquent state a "State Super- 
intendent of National Schools." Under the State Superinten- 
dent were to be Division Inspectors of National Schools, ap- 
pointed by the Secretary of the Interior, one for each con- 
gressional district. There was to be a still further division of 
the inspection districts into school districts with Local Super- 
intendents of National Schools at their head, these officials also 
to be appointed by the Secretary of the Interior. The books 
to be used in the schools were to be prescribed by the State 
Superintendents under the direction of the National Commis- 
sioner of Education, and the administration and reports of the 
schools were to follow plans drawn up by the National Com- 
missioner. In the performance of all the duties imposed by 
the bill, the Local Superintendents were to be subject to the 
directions of the Division Inspector, the Division Inspector to 
those of the State Superintendents, and the State Superinten- 
dents to those of the Commissioner of Education. The financial 
support for the system was to be obtained from a direct tax 
of $50,000,000 to be levied annually for school purposes in 
the several states, this also to be assessed and collected by 
national agents. 

The supporters of the bill, and they were numerous and 
influential, saw only the educational destitution of the South, 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 431 

the uncertainty of Southern sentiment with regard to edu- 
cation, the lack of funds to provide adequate systems of pubHc 
schools out of the blasted resources of the Southern States, 
and the unwillingness of the Southern whites to provide schools 
for the negroes. They saw the menace to representative gov- 
ernment of an ignorant — even illiterate — majority of voters. 
They felt the humanitarian appeal of enlightening the hordes 
of freedmen and had extravagant ideas of what education could 
and would do for the black man. In response to such demands 
and impelled by such motives, an educational system was seri- 
ously proposed and stoutly advocated that would have been 
in the educational field the exact counterpart of civil govern- 
ment under the major-generals. 

The schoolmen of the country as represented in the meeting 
of the National Educational Association in 1871 opposed the 
extreme centralization that was contemplated in the Hoar Bill. 
They evidently agreed with Superintendent J. P. Wickersham 
in his statement that our country could not endure one-half a 
republic and the other half a despotism any more than it 
could exist one-half free and the other half slave. The Asso- 
ciation, however, recognized the desirability of national aid to 
the Southern States on terms that would respect more thor- 
oughly the principle of local autonomy, and passed resolutions 
to that effect. The Hoar Bill failed of passage. 

The Southern Whites Regain Control. — When there was 
seen to be no relief in the law from negro political domination, 
the Southern white population turned to other means for re- 
gaining their lost political independence. Foremost among 
these was intimidation of negro voters, which succeeded by 
1870 in four of the Southern States where the negroes were 
less numerous, in returning political control to the white voters. 
Meanwhile Northern opinion was shifting in favor of a more 
moderate policy toward the South, and in 1876, when only 
three Southern States continued under negro and "carpet- 
bagger" or ''scalawag" control, the military governments were 
removed and the Southern whites were at last able again to 
assume political dominance. As the chief concern of politics 



432 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

was to keep power in the hands of the white race, it became 
almost a matter of course that a white man should be a Demo- 
crat. It was only after the negro was pretty generally removed 
from politics by legislation beginning among the Southern 
States in 1890, that normal divisions of the electorate on real 
issues put renewed vitality into political life in that section. 

Economic Collapse of the South. — The economic life of 
the South at the close of the Civil War was in desperate straits. 
The chief item of Southern wealth, the slaves, had been can- 
celled without recompense. Practically all the fluid wealth in 
the form of securities and public funds had been used up in the 
prosecution of the war. Private fortunes were ruined and the 
public coffers were empty. Farm buildings and dwellings had 
largely deteriorated or been destroyed. Tools for labor, ma- 
chinery, even animals for farm work, were lacking. The land 
alone remained. The labor population, unaccustomed to the 
new conditions of freedom, had to be schooled back into volun- 
tary industry. The venality and inefficiency of the Reconstruc- 
tion state governments had piled heavy loads of debt upon the 
people, whose burdens, already too great to be borne, 'were 
thus increased by confiscatory taxes. 

Even after the resumption of white political control had 
restored economy and honesty in government, the recovery 
of the South from the economic collapse ensuing upon the de- 
feat of the Confederacy was slow, especially under tariff laws 
that bled her for the East and pension laws that annually took 
from South to North many millions. Gradually, however, the 
new problems of free labor and small farm economy were 
solved. The necessary capital was found for a resumption of 
the orderly processes of production and exchange. Natural 
resources of forest and mine that had lain untouched while 
cotton was king now began to be utilized. The streams of the 
Piedmont came more and more generally to be harnessed to 
industrial production. Here a little and there a little the 
South recovered economic stability and increased its wealth, 
until in about 1890 what is called the New South was seen to 
be coming into existence. 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 433 

Education under Presidential Reconstruction. — The 
educational conditions that existed in the South for the genera- 
tion following the Civil War must be considered always in the 
light of the economic and political conditions that wehave tried 
briefly to indicate. Before the Civil War, public opinion was 
solidly opposed to the education of negroes, and some of the 
Southern States had laws forbidding negroes to be taught. 
We have already in an earlier connection shown the growing 
interest before the war in public free schools for white children, 
although it was necessary to state that only in North Carolina 
and Louisiana had progress in the erection of such systems 
been marked. When the war ended, the States that were reor- 
ganized under the terms of Presidential Reconstruction made 
provision in the new state constitutions for comprehensive 
systems of public schools. In some of the states this provision 
applied only as concerned white children. As this was the 
period and these were the auspices under which the Black 
Codes were passed in the Southern States, it is not surprising 
that there was considerable uncertainty regarding the advisa- 
bility of providing public schools for negro children. A gen- 
eral tendency was exhibited in these constitutional provisions 
and laws regarding education to place a State Superintendent 
of Public Instruction and a State Board of Education at the 
head of school affairs in the state. Local authorities and state 
taxation for school purposes were provided for. 

Education under Radical and Negro Auspices. — The 
failure of Presidential Reconstruction in 1867 and the begin- 
ning of Congressional Reconstruction at the same time was, 
generally speaking, the occasion for new constitutional con- 
ventions. In these conventions negro and radical delegates 
were uniformly in the majority and the educational provisions 
of the new constitutions and the legislation which carried out 
the constitutional mandates reflected very definitely the new 
balance of power. The earlier provisions for state officers, 
local authorities, compulsory taxation were continued in the 
new constitutions and laws. In South Carolina and in Louisi- 
ana, the provision was inserted in the constitution that the pub- 



434 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

lie schools should be open to all children without regard to race 
or color. In some of the states no decision was reached on the 
question of mixed schools, while in others definite provision 
was made for separate schools for white and black children. 
The authority of these radical constitutions and laws con- 
tinued up to 1876. In theory and on paper, systems of free 
schools were established, but in practice educational develop- 
ment during the years of Congressional Reconstruction was 
almost negligible. The finances of the states were disorgan- 
ized and influential white opinion stood aloof. In the states 
where mixed schools were mandatory, the white children re- 
frained from going to school, with the result that the public 
schools set in operation were attended by negroes only. In all 
the other states the fear of a possible system of public schools 
open to both white and black paralyzed public effort. No 
schools would be better, the white population thought, than 
public schools under such conditions. The general uncertainty 
connected with the problem of negro education and the all- 
prevailing poverty led to local unwillingness to vote taxes for 
education and laxness in collecting state taxes provided by law 
for school purposes. Accordingly, in spite of advanced legis- 
lation, little in reality was accomplished. During this period 
the beneficent activities of the Peabody Board were begun. 
Its financial assistance was contributed in the aid of local 
efforts everywhere throughout the South and its influence was 
constantly exerted to abate the partisan insanity that would 
have forced mixed schools upon the South. 

In 1876, when reconstruction under military auspices was 
brought to an end, a new crop of state constitutions marked 
the overthrow of negro and radical government. In these new 
basic laws, the administrative provisions of the earlier post-war 
constitutions were in general continued, while separate schools 
for the two races were universally made mandatory. Many 
whites had, however, conceived an opposition to public educa- 
tion as having been forced upon them and there was a strong 
tendency to set strict limitations upon taxation by means of 
statutory and constitutional provisions. Accordingly, in spite 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 435 

of general acceptance of the principle of universal public edu- 
cation, the South, handicapped by economic depression and 
hindered in many cases by local apathy and prejudice, made 
but slow headway under its double burden of a dual school 
system. 

Agitation for Federal Aid to Southern Education. — In 
view of the difficulties under which the southern common- 
wealths labored, the conviction that the federal government 
should do something in regard to educatiopal conditions in the 
South gained rather than lost adherents. As long as General 
John Eaton served as U. S. Commissioner of Education, which 
was from 1870 to 1886, he included among his recommenda- 
tions to Congress almost as a set formula the following: "In 
view of the large number of children growing up in ignorance 
on account of the impoverished condition of portions of the 
country, and in view of the special difficulties in the way of 
establishing and maintaining therein schools for universal edu- 
cation, and in consideration of the imperative need of imme- 
diate action in this regard, I recommend that the whole or a 
portion of the net proceeds arising from the sale of public 
lands shall be set aside as a special fund, and its interest be 
divided annually, pro rata between the people of the several 
states and territories and the District of Columbia, under such 
provisions in regard to amount, allotment, expenditure, and 
supervision as Congress in its wisdom may deem fit and 
proper." 

The Blair Bill. — During the seventies and the eighties the 
subject of federal aid to education, especially in view of the 
high rate of illiteracy and the educational backwardness of 
the South, was constantly before the Department of Superin- 
tendence of the National Educational Association. The reso- 
lutions of that Department frequently reflected the favorable 
sentiment of the members for such a move on the part of the 
national government, and it was at a meeting of the Depart- 
ment of Superintendence held in New York City in 1881, that 
principles of national participation in education were formu- 
lated that found expression in the bill introduced by Senator 



436 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

Blair in December 1881, before the Senate of the United 
States. This bill provided for the distribution of .1^77.000,000 
to the various states of the Union in proportion to the number 
of illiterates within the states. The terms of the bill con- 
templated larger grants proportionately to the Southern States 
than to the other states of the Union and was a frank effort 
to aid the South with its extremely heavy — its disproportion- 
ately heavy — educational burdens. The tendency toward fed- 
eral control over the expenditure of this money, which had 
characterized the Hoar Bill, was absent from the Blair Bill. 
Instead of a high degree of centralization, the bill provided 
for almost complete freedom on the part of the states in their 
application of the national grants. The Blair Bill was passed 
by the Senate in three successive Congresses with large ma- 
jorities, but in each case it was impossible to secure favorable 
action from the House of Representatives. It is noteworthy 
that the division of votes on this bill was not on sectional 
or party lines. The number of Southern members who voted 
in favor of the bill in the Forty-eighth Congress was greater 
than the number voting against it. 

With the final failure of the Blair Bill in the Fiftieth Con- 
gress, the friends of the principle of federal aid to general edu- 
cation gave up active efforts to have such a measure passed 
and there was not a serious revival of effort in that direction 
until the second decade of the new century. 

State and Local School Administration 

Material Expansion and Consolidation the Dominant 
Note of Education during the Period 1861-1890. — In pass- 
ing on to a consideration of the developments in public edu- 
cation between 1861 and 1890, one will discover as the domi- 
nant note the slowness of educational change. The system 
which had recognizably come into existence by the time of the 
outbreak of the Civil War, was extended with the spread of 
population over the new areas won to statehood. The period 
was one of consolidation and expansion along accepted lines. 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 437 

Most emphatically it was not a period of innovation nor of 
conspicuous improvement. The extreme application of the 
principle of local self-government, which had characterized 
our national life up to the Civil War, continued to be the rule 
of civil administration in school as in other affairs. The in- 
difference to expert service which was perhaps justifiable under 
the simple conditions of early American life, continued over 
into a period when the greater complexity of existence re- 
quired administration by technically trained officials. The 
passion for popular control, which had placed all offices of the 
government at the disposal of the universal electorate or made 
them the spoils of party politics, continued without abate- 
ment ^to interfere with efficient public service. In the rapid 
survey of the conditions of state and local school administra- 
tion which follows, one will discover that democracy, up to the 
nineties, had learned but a small part of its necessary lesson 
of self-discipline. Local education authorities continued to 
rule their little school-district or township domain with a 
minimum of guidance or control from state authorities, while 
the state as a whole had as yet failed to recognize its responsi- 
bility or its opportunity with respect to leadership or financial 
assistance. 

State Educational Administration. — In the preceding 
chapter it has been shown how the years preceding the Civil 
War saw the general development of the office of state super- 
intendent of public instruction as well as the partial accept- 
ance of the notion that there should be in the state some ad- 
visory body to look after educational interests. That both 
the office of state superintendent and the state board of 
education were pretty definite fixtures in the educational 
thought of the generation following the Civil War is shown 
by the fact that all the new states admitted between 1861 and 
1890 provided for a state superintendent of public instruction, 
and most of them either by constitutional provision or by early 
legislation set up some form of state board with more or less 
extensive prerogatives. Further corroboration of this tendency 
is found in the fact that the educational reorganization which 



438 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

took place among the Southern States after the Civil War 
followed the same lines. 

The OfBce of State Superintendent. — A comprehensive 
outline of the then existing state systems of education was 
published by the United States Bureau of Education as Cir- 
cular of Information Number 2 in 1880. The data therein col- 
lected showed that in twenty-one states the state superinten- 
dent was elected by the people, in eight states he was appointed 
by the governor, in three states he was elected by the legisla- 
ture, while in six states he was appointed by the state board 
under that or some corresponding title. It is thus seen that 
the idea of making the highest state educational officer elective 
by popular vote was not only the predominant but the active 
tendency in the eighties, for the newer states as they were 
admitted followed that system of choice. The best educational 
thought of the time, however, had already sensed a flaw in the 
practice of subjecting the incumbent of the office of state super- 
intendent to periodic campaigns for reelection on a party ticket. 
The National Council of Education in 1885 adopted a series 
of resolutions regarding the desirable state syster~ of educa- 
tion, following the report of a special committee on the subject, 
and the opinion of that body was that the best results would 
be secured if the selection of the state superintendent were left 
to a properly constituted state board of education. The con- 
ception of the functions of the state superintendent which the 
National Council of Education had in 1885 shows that the 
office was gaining increased educational significance with the 
passage of years. The resolutions referred to the superinten- 
dent as the commander-in-chief of the educational armies of the 
state and in part read as follows: 

"The state needs an agent to take general supervision of 
its schools and of its school funds and revenues. It needs a 
skillful superintendent to visit the various localities and awaken 
interest in public education; to advise subordinate officers and 
teachers in respect to their duties; to interpret the school law 
to them; to determine certain matters of general interest that 
may be taken to him on appeal, and to inform the law-making 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 439 

power of the state concerning the condition of the schools, and 
to suggest such reforms as are needed to make them more 
efficient and valuable." 

Indeed the practice in some or many of the states embodied 
all the recommendations of the National Council of Education 
and other functions besides. Practically all the states ex- 
pected the state superintendent to make official visits in the 
interest of education. In eighteen of the states he apportioned 
the school revenues to the districts. In sixteen states he was 
empowered to interpret the school law and in nine states he 
was given the power to settle appeals in matters of school law. 
Seven states had entrusted the state superintendent with the 
right to grant state teachers certificates and six states had laid 
upon him the duty of prescribing or recommending text-books 
to be used in the schools of the entire state. In one state, 
Alabama, he appointed the county superintendents. 
/xhe State Board of Education.— Of the thirty-eight 
states in 1880, twenty-four had state boards of education. 
When one comes to examine the make-up of these boards it is 
seen that the educational functions of the state boards as 
opposed to their financial functions were receiving greater 
recognition, for at that time in thirteen of the states, the boards 
were composed mainly of teachers, or others definitely con- 
nected with education. In eleven states, however, the state 
boards continued to be made up chiefly of state officers who 
were designated as members of the state board of education 
in their official capacities. 

The resolutions of the National Council of Education re- 
ferred to above, ascribed to the state board a considerable 
variety of strictly educational functions. "It should be em- 
powered to grant life certificates to persons of superior scholar- 
ship and high professional ability; it should exercise super- 
visory control over the higher educational institutions sup- 
ported by the state and especially over the state normal 
schools; it should examine and licence all local officers author- 
ized to examine and licence teachers in the various school cor- 
porations of the state, and it should have the power to instruct 



440 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

and direct these local examiners in regard to the standard of 
qualifications required of candidates for licences, and in regard 
to the preparation of questions to be used in their examination." 
So extensive a catalogue of educational functions was thought 
to call for the selection of the members of the state board 
chiefly from among the teaching profession, so chosen as to 
represent the various school interests of the state. 

Some of the recommendations of the National Council of 
Education had already been made a part of the practice of sev- 
eral states. In eleven states in 1880 the state board exercised 
the privilege of granting teachers certificates possessing state- 
wide validity, while in a number of other states special exam- 
ining boards exercised this function. In Michigan and Indiana 
the state board was expected to prepare the examination ques- 
tions for the county examiners. In three states the state board 
had the function of appointing the county superintendents and 
in two states the county boards of education. In ten states 
at that time state uniformity of text-books had come to be con- 
sidered an educational advantage and the prescription or rec- 
ommendation of the books to be used had been added to the 
duties of the state boards of education. 

Growing Importance of the State School Authorities. — 
It is seen from the foregoing account of the functions of the 
state superintendent and the state board of education that in 
the eighties both practice and theory united in a tendency to 
extend the power of the state school administration over prov- 
inces which in an earlier period had belonged exclusively to 
local authorities. Up to that time, however, the enlargement 
of the powers of the central authority had taken place piece- 
meal and in a sporadic way. There were signs of a trend 
toward greater centralization in school administration, but 
such a tendency had at that time experienced only very mod- 
erate development, and this through the allocation to the state 
superintendent or the state board of the functions and duties 
mentioned above. The general failure of local communities 
to rise to a satisfactory level of educational efficiency was, how- 
ever, causing grave concern to the thoughtful and the idea was 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 441 

gaining ground that it was the business of the state "to follow 
the proceeds of the tax into the schoolroom, and see that it 
produces the end for which it was taken." And it was being 
more and more clearly recognized that as means to this end 
the state should prescribe certain definite standards as to 
course of study, qualifications of teachers, length of school 
term, and any other matter that could affect the excellence of 
the educational opportunities provided by the local authori- 
ties. Furthermore the state department of education should 
possess the means of knowing what was going on in the com- 
munities and of carrying its standards to those communities 
and enforcing them. These powers could be realized only 
through the increase of the personnel of the central authority 
and the employment of agents directly responsible to the cen- 
tral authority. Before the nineties, however, state supervision 
through departmental agents made little headway. Massa- 
chusetts back in the fifties had extended its system of state 
supervision through the appointment of three general agents 
to visit the schools and supervise school work under the au- 
thority of the secretary of the state board. Minnesota had 
provided for a state high school inspector acting under the 
directions of the state superintendent. New York had con- 
tinued its long established policy of holding local supervisors 
responsible to the state department, and in several of the 
southern states the county superintendents were closely de- 
pendent upon the central authorities. In general, however, the 
extensive development of state supervision which has taken 
place in the last thirty years in the United States was only 
experiencing its early beginnings during the generation which 
followed the Civil War. In the discussions of local authori- 
ties and financial relations which are to follow, the position of 
the state departments in the educational affairs of the states 
will be more fully exhibited. 

The County Superintendent, — Outside of the New Eng- 
land states, the office of county superintendent had become 
all but universal by 1880. In that year twenty-nine out of 
thirty-eight states had such an office. The predominant 



442 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

tendency with reference to the choice of this officer was to have 
him elected by the people at general elections and for a term of 
two years. In six states the county superintendent was ap- 
pointed by some member or board of the state government; in 
six states he was appointed or elected by educational officers, 
and in three others by the county courts. In twenty-eight 
states the county superintendent was either entrusted solely 
with the duty of examining the teachers of the county or he 
was a member of the examining board. In most of the states 
he was expected to visit the schools of the county. 

The status of the county superintendent during this period 
indicates some uncertainty regarding his relationships. The 
general practice as to his selection, namely, election by the 
people, would indicate that he was mainly regarded as a local 
educational officer, whereas the practice of placing the ap- 
pointment of the county superintendent in the hands of state 
authorities would indicate that he was considered as the local 
agent of the state department and, as such, responsible to that 
department. The resolutions of the National Council of Edu- 
cation referred to above, called for a much closer relationship 
between the state department and the county superintendent 
than was at that time general in practice. The large powers 
which he enjoyed in regard to the certification of teachers, it 
was thought, deserved to be brought under the guidance and 
control of the state department, and it began to be clear that 
the local official upon whom the state department was bound 
to depend in so many matters should possess educational quali- 
fications, prescribed by the state department, which would 
attest his fitness for the duties of his office. 

In the New England states the beginnings of professional 
supervision of the town schools had been made before 1890. 
Massachusetts in 1888 provided by law for the union of towns 
to employ a superintendent of schools and offered state aid to 
small towns as an encouragement to employ such an officer. 
Rhode Island in 1871 and Connecticut in 1886 made the be- 
ginnings of a system of town supervision. The extensive and 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 443 

effective development of that system, however, has been the 
product of the last thirty years. 

Local Authorities. — In 1880 there existed, exclusive of the 
cities, three fairly well-defined types of local authority, namely, 
county, township or town, and district boards of education or 
school directors. The organization of the cities for school 
administration followed separate lines and may best be dis- 
cussed by itself. 

The County System. — The highest development of the 
county system of school administration had occurred in the 
South, where in several states there were county boards of 
education with extensive powers. Many other states had 
county boards with limited powers, but in ten of the states 
having county boards they were mainly concerned with the 
examination and certification of teachers. In the South, how- 
ever, the county board was in certain states the real local 
authority having control of the entire county in regard to 
major educational functions. In four of the southern states 
the county board levied all local taxes; in three it employed 
all teachers in the county; and in three it prescribed text- 
books for use in the schools. The practice of some of the 
southern states to constitute the county boards of education 
the real local authority for the relatively extensive area of the 
civil county represents a significant educational development. 
By the eighties the development of the county board as a local 
education authority had hardly gone far enough to be describ- 
able as a trend or tendency; but as an experiment that was to 
prove successful and that was destined to have wide adoption, 
the early beginnings of county control should not escape at- 
tention. 

The District System. — In the eighties the school district 
(see p. 352ff.) continued to be the most widely used area 
for purposes of local school administration. In thirty states 
in 1880 the teachers for the local schools were chosen by the 
district trustees or directors; in twenty-three states the same 
officials had charge of the location, construction, and care of 



444 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

the school buildings, and in fourteen states they levied local 
taxes for the support of schools. 

In the New England states there was some movement during 
the generation after the Civil War in the direction of enlarging 
the area for school control. Vermont in 1870 enacted a law 
that made it possible for towns to abandon the district in favor 
of the town system, and in 1884 passed a new law on the sub- 
ject that compelled the towns to vote upon the proposition. 
Rhode Island in 1884 passed a permissive law allowing towns 
to abolish the district system. In Massachusetts, where the 
town after 1826 had regained importance as a local education 
authority, a law of 1869 permitted the consolidation of school 
districts on vote of the citizens. In Connecticut, where the 
district was still the predominant local authority, steps toward 
the town system may be seen in the permissive act of 1865 
which authorized the towns to consolidate all school districts 
under town management by a majority vote of the districts. 
In the following year a law was passed in the same state which 
made consolidation possible on the vote of the town at large. 
Change under these laws was extremely slow, however, and it 
was only in 1909 that Connecticut abolished district control. 

The Town or Township System. — According to the 
Circular of Information, 1880, No. 2, from which the figures 
regarding state systems are taken, there were two states in 
which the township school trustees or school directors levied 
the local taxes for school purposes, three in which they had 
charge of the school buildings, and five in which they appointed 
the teachers in the schools of the township. In all the New 
England states except Vermont township authorities examined 
and licensed all teachers. In eight states all the supervision 
which was given to the work of the schools was provided by 
town or township authorities. 

In general it may be said that there was little change in the 
constitution of local authorities during the period of twenty- 
five years following the Civil War. In New England there was 
some progress away from the unlimited district system as indi- 
cated in efforts towards consolidation and the establishment 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 445 

of professional supervision for the towns; but the changes were 
slight indeed. The main difference between the almost su- 
preme control over educational affairs which school district 
authorities exercised over the schools before the Civil War and 
the condition existing in the eighties, consisted in the universal 
adoption of some form of examination and certification of 
teachers that placed that important educational function at 
least beyond the control of district trustees. In 1880, thirty- 
one states had placed this function in the hands of county 
superintendent or county examining board, six in the hands of 
town or township authorities, and one, Delaware, in the hands 
of the state superintendent. The prescription of minimum 
courses of study and minimum length of school term consti- 
tuted additional leverage which the state authorities were 
beginning to apply upon local authorities. 

The Financial Support of Schools. — In twenty-three of 
the thirty-eight states in 1880 there was levied a state tax to 
be applied to the support of the schools of the state at large, 
while in five other states legislative appropriations from the 
treasury were made for the same purpose. Ten states made 
no contributions to local school costs except through the dis- 
tribution of the income from state funds. In the southern 
states, the proportion of the state's contribution to the entire 
school budget of the local communities was relatively heavy. 
Four of the southern states thus contributed more than the; 
entire amount expended for instruction, while three others con- 
tributed 75 per cent or more of this total. In the South fol- 
lowing the Civil War, in the absence of a tradition of public 
education and the habit of local taxation for school purposes, 
the acceptance on the part of the state governments of rela- 
tively heavy financial responsibility seemed to be the shortest 
cut to the universal provision of schools. It was when new 
legislation allowed and stimulated local taxation among the 
southern states, that is to say, after the period in question, 
that educational progress in that section became accelerated. 

The all but universal rule for the distribution of state funds 
during the period from 1861-1890 was to pay out to each dis- 



446 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

trict its share on the basis of school or general population. 
In some states, however, the value of setting up conditions 
for the receipt of state moneys by local authorities had been 
realized. In at least ten states, local authorities forfeited the 
state appropriation if they did not maintain schools for the 
minimum term prescribed by law. In some states, state ap- 
propriations depended on the raising of some equal or other 
stated sum by the local authorities, as in Rhode Island and 
New Jersey. Wisconsin in 1875 appropriated $25,000 annu- 
ally for aiding localities in the maintenance of high schools and 
in 1885 doubled the amount of that appropriation. In 1878 
]\Iinnesota began making appropriations for the same pur- 
pose. It is fair to say, however, that the power which the 
state possessed to improve educational facilities through mak- 
ing state contributions depend on local effort, was little ap- 
preciated during this period and used hardly at all. 

City School Administration 

The history of educational administration in the cities of the 
United States has not yet been written; indeed not even a 
respectable start in the direction of such a history has been 
made. The subject is especially difficult for a number of 
reasons. The city is a creation of the state government, and 
no uniformity of principle or practice has been exhibited in 
the acts of the various state legislatures which have incor- 
porated cities under charters giving them special powers and 
restraining them under special restrictions. In many states 
the charters of cities have been granted by special legislation, 
while in other states general acts for the organization of cities 
have been passed. For this reason historical study of even 
the local authorities for education and of their relationship to 
other branches of municipal government constitutes a labori- 
ous and intricate undertaking. 

The difficulty of such a study is increased by the fact that 
many of the most important changes in the actual practice of 
school administration do not appear in any statutes, but are 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 447 

to be found only in the records of boards of education. As an 
illustration of this fact, the office of city superintendent, one of 
the most influential positions of leadership in the field of edu- 
cation and now universally found in city school systems in 
the United States, has had an almost altogether extra-legal 
development. In many states, the legislation which legalized 
the office, without clearly defining its functions, came after 
the appointment of a city superintendent of schools by city 
boards of education had become a very general practice. In 
some cases the legality of the office was made to depend upon 
court decisions, as in the famous Kalamazoo Case in INIichigan, 
in which the decision was handed down in 1872. In all cases 
the powers of the superintendent were uncertain, depending 
largely on the personality of the official and the traditions or 
interests of the school board which employed him. The his- 
tory of the office of city superintendent of schools is in itself 
a study of the first magnitude and remains to be undertaken. 
What the present writer will have to say on the subject of city 
school administration during the period under discussion will 
of necessity be inadequate. But it at least seems worth while 
to mark out the terra incognita and to skirt it as closely as 
possible.^ 

Developments in City Government. — Special forms of 
government for local areas have been adopted in the United 
States when the aggregation of population has made the rela- 
tively simple frame of administration of the town or township 
inadequate for the new conditions of existence. The multi- 
plication of governmental duties connected with life in highly 
populated areas would call for the erection of more efficient 
machinery of administration and a city charter would re- 
organize a given area under a special form of municipal con- 
trol. Beginning with about 1825 city government began 
closely to follow the outlines of state government. There was 
a mayor, corresponding in his functions to the governor, and 

^ In the account of city school administration which follows, the 
writer has borrowed freely from Philbrick, City School Systems in the 
United States, Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, 1885, 
No. I. 



448 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

a bicameral council, corresponding to the legislature. Both 
were commonly elected by the people. By 1850 the cities had 
become the stronghold of political power, and municipal effi- 
ciency had come largely to be sacrificed to the exigencies of 
party strength. City government became scandalous and 
efforts at reform resulted in changes in the form of adminis- 
tration. The new charters took away from the councils the 
administrative functions which they had continued to enjoy 
and even deprived the mayor of functions he had formerly 
enjoyed. The more important functions of city government 
were performed by boards appointed in many cases by the 
governor of the state and otherwise by the mayor alone or 
by the mayor and council, and sometimes elected by the peo- 
ple. The result was a complete decentralization of govern- 
ment which made it impossible to fix responsibility for fraud, 
negligence, or incompetency. It was during the sixties and the 
seventies that municipal dishonesty and corruption were at 
their worst. In order to correct the new evils of administration 
which had developed under the board system, a new type of 
city government began to be established in which the power 
of the mayor was almost supreme. He was given almost ex- 
clusive power of appointment of 'the executive officers of the 
city government and he could accordingly be held responsible 
for any failure of administration. New York was the first 
large city to adopt the "mayor plan" of government, according 
to which even the members of the city board of education were 
appointed by the mayor. 

City Boards of Education. — In all this record of corrupt 
and generally unsatisfactory city government and of reorgani- 
zation undertaken for the purpose of improving these bad 
conditions, the control of education in general remained an in- 
dependent interest. The tendency was for the local education 
authorities which had been in existence before the city had 
been organized as a spcial form of government, to continue, or 
where discontinued in favor of a general board such board had 
a separate basis of selection and was more or less independent 
of the rest of the city government. In some cities, the local 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 449 

boards of the original school districts were retained as ward 
school boards, and as new towns were added to the city, their 
local education authorities were likewise continued. As exam- 
ples in point are Philadelphia and Boston. In the former city 
there were at one time thirty-one local boards each composed 
of from ten to twenty members each. In the case of Boston 
the school board had reached a membership of one hundred 
sixteen before a reorganization occurred in 1876. In addition 
to these local boards, which retained few or many of their 
original powers, as the case might be, there was commonly to 
be found a general board of education elected by the people 
or by the school directors of the local boards. 

In probably the greater number of cases, however, the or- 
ganization of city boards of education represented a consoli- 
dation of the educational interests of the municipal area under 
a single board. The Akron School Law passed in Ohio in 1847 
for the city of Akron was shortly afterwards applied to the 
city of Dayton as well, and later made to apply to all incor- 
porated cities and towns that should by a two-thirds vote 
petition the town council for its adoption. This law is to be 
considered a landmark in the development of city school ad- 
ministration. It provided for the election of six school direct- 
ors for the city or town. The board of education so chosen 
was made a legal corporation and compelled to organize with 
a president, secretary, and treasurer. The financial powers 
connected with education, that is the power to buy and own 
land for school purposes and to levy taxes for school mainte- 
nance, were vested in the city council subject to the advice of 
the board of education. The board of education was required 
by the law to furnish the city council with an estimate of the 
amount of money needed. The determination of school sites 
and the construction of school buildings were placed in the 
hands of the board of education and other strictly educational 
functions were delegated to that body. In a supplementary 
law passed in 1849 by the Ohio legislature, extending the privi- 
leges of the Akron Law to any incorporated town or village 
containing two hundred or more inhabitants, the municipal 



450 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

council was deprived of its educational functions and the fiscal 
aspects of school control were given over to the boards of 
education with the limitation of the tax rate to 4 mills and 
the requirement of a referendum to the people on the rate of 
taxation. 

Much of the legislation passed in other states in regard to 
the administration of schools in cities followed the Akron Law 
in its general form. By 1885 the control of education in most 
cities had come under a single board of education. These 
boards of education varied greatly in respect to number, but 
in general they were large boards as compared with boards at 
the present day. Cincinnati in 1885 had a board of fifty mem- 
bers, Pittsburgh of thirty-three, New York twenty-one, Boston 
twenty-five, St. Louis twenty-six. In some cases the boards 
were elected by the people at large and in some cases by the 
people according to wards; but almost always they were 
elected as a separate branch of city government by the people. 

The City Schools in Politics, — The all-too-general ineffi- 
ciency and dishonesty of city administration which has been 
referred to above were felt in the administration of education 
during this period. The office of school director carried with 
it possibilities of "graft" that made it attractive to venal 
persons and worth the attention of party organizations. In a 
period of tremendous expansion of the physical plant there 
were large possibilities of dishonest gains in the purchase of 
sites and the letting of building contracts. The letting of 
contracts for supplies furnished opportunities for smaller 
graft, while the appointment of janitors, even of teachers, fur- 
nished opportunities of taking care of political friends and 
henchmen. 

Closely connected with the venal uses to which the office of 
school director was sometimes put, was the form of organiza- 
tion and the distribution of functions of the board of educa- 
tion. The large boards were ordinarily divided up into a 
large number of subordinate committees, each intrusted with 
some special phase of school administration. In Cincinnati, for 
example, there were up to about 1885, twenty- five standing 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 451 

committees of the board of education having charge of: 
boundaries, buildings and repairs, claims, course of study and 
text-books, discipline, drawing, examinations, fuel, funds and 
taxes, furniture, German department, gymnastics, law, lots, 
music, night schools, normal school and teachers' institute, 
penmanship, printing, reports and excuses, rules and regula- 
tions, salaries, stores and furnaces, supplies, and ungraded 
schools. Besides the standing committees mentioned there 
were thirty-four sub-committees on districts and schools. 
Then there was a "union board" composed in part of members 
of the board of education, which had fifteen committees. It 
is thus seen that in all there were seventy-four committees en- 
trusted with the management of the public schools of Cincin- 
nati. The Chicago board had seventy-nine such committees. 
On the other hand, there were cities that got on with con- 
siderably fewer standing sub-committees and without any dis- 
trict committees whatever. St. Louis, for example, had only 
twelve standing committees and no committees on school dis- 
tricts and schools. 

Fiscal Control. — In the matter of fiscal control there were 
all varieties of dependence on the general city administration 
and of independence of it. In New York the board of educa- 
tion was not dependent on the council either for the purchase 
of sites or the erection of school buildings. St. Louis gave its 
board practically unlimited power in the disbursement of 
school money. In general, however, the boards of education 
were limited in their expenditure of money either by the state 
law or by the concurrent power of some other branch of the 
city government. As far as the writer is aware no statistical 
study of the practices during this period of the various cities 
in respect to fiscal control has yet been published. Needless 
to say such a study would be of interest at the present time, 
when the question of fiscal dependence or independence of 
city boards of education is one of the large issues of school 
administration. 

The City Superintendent of Schools. — From the distribu- 
tion of functions and duties among the various committees of 



452 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

the board of education, it is easily seen that the school situa- 
tion in the city was one that called for some sort of profes- 
sional management. The business of a city school system 
had become entirely too extensive for lay control. An exami- 
nation of the work apportioned among the committees reveals 
at least two types of work to be performed, — namely that 
which is strictly educational and that which is mainly mana- 
gerial. It is rather natural to suppose that a lay board would 
first recognize its deficiences in connection with the former class 
of duties. Perhaps, too, the "perquisites" of the educational 
functions were not so substantial as might accrue to the 'letting 
of building contracts and the purchase of supplies. At any 
rate, the first assistance called for by the boards in the man- 
agement of school affairs was in connection with the super- 
vision of instruction. When the Boston School Board for the 
first time in the history of that city elected in 185 1 a superin- 
tendent of schools, it placed at the head of his duties the 
following: "He shall devote himself to the study of our school 
system and of the condition of the schools, and shall keep him- 
self acquainted with the progress of instruction and discipline 
in other places, in order to suggest appropriate means for the 
advancement of the public schools of this city." Besides his 
distinctively educational functions, the superintendent of 
schools in the smaller cities had to undertake a large variety 
of duties of the managerial sort. Dr. Philbrick in the report 
referred to above (see footnote p. 447) says: "He not only 
acts as adviser of the board and of its individual members and 
supervises, inspects, and examines all the schools, but he has 
to provide, under the direction of the board for all the ma- 
terial wants of the school. He superintends the repairs on 
the schoolhouses and assists in devising plans for new ones; 
he attends to the providing of fuel ; he procures and distributes 
the supplies, not only of materials and apparatus for instruc- 
tion, but also brooms, mats, dippers, and such like; audits 
the bills; prepares the payrolls of teachers, acts as the secre- 
tary of the school board and makes an annual report exhibit- 
ing the progress and condition of the school." In the larger 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 453 

cities the business duties had already begun by 1885 to be 
taken over by special agents, appointed for that work, so as 
to leave the superintendent free for the duties that called for 
an educational expert. Even in that field the demands upon 
the superintendent had become so heavy that assistant super- 
intendents and special supervisors were being provided, sub- 
ject to his authority. 

By 1885 the office of superintendent had become all but 
universal in the cities of the United States. The superintend- 
ent, however, remained insecure in his tenure of office. He was 
subject to periodic reelection by the board, usually every one 
or two years. His duties were prescribed by the board of edu- 
cation; but with the strong tradition of board control which 
persisted, his prerogatives were uncertain. In general, it may 
be said that his power and influence depended largely upon 
himself, although that factor was bound to be influenced by 
the maJie-up and the traditions of the board. In some cities, 
the appointment, promotion, and transfer of teachers rested 
entirely in the hands of the appropriate sub-committee of the 
board of education. The approved way to secure a position or 
a promotion was to "see" the members of the school board or 
of the teachers committee of the board, and not infrequently 
the shortest way to the desired end was through the mediation 
of some altogether "informal" member of the city administra- 
tion. In other cities the power of the superintendent was 
much greater. For example in St. Louis the superintendent 
in connection with the committee on teachers, had almost full 
power in the appointment of teachers and the transfer of 
teachers and pupils from one school to another. 

The chief obstacle to the standardization of the duties and 
powers of the school superintendent during this period lay 
in the personnel of the office itself. The superintendent of 
schools was a man generally of good education who had come 
up through an apprenticeship of school teaching and manage- 
ment. He was not professionally educated for his office, for 
there was no existing institution that undertook to instruct him 
in its duties or in how to take advantage of its practically 



454 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

unlimited possibilities. The real era of the professionally 
trained superintendent has followed the development of uni- 
versity chairs and schools of education and the scientific study 
of educational administration. 



The High School 

The generation preceding the Civil War saw the origin of 
the high school, which embodied the conception of the free 
gift to all of opportunities of secondary education. However, 
for a period of about fifty years, the spread of that institution 
was relatively slight. In the seventies a considerable accelera- 
tion of activity in founding high schools began and by 1890 
a stupendous development of the free public high school was 
well under way. 

Opposition to High Schools. — The cause of free public 
elementary education had been practically won by the opening 
of the Civil War and the years immediately following it saw 
the universal adoption of the principle of gratuitous instruc- 
tion in schools of that grade. The multiplication of schools 
giving secondary instruction under public auspices seemed to 
many, however, to belong in a different category; so the social 
groups that had opposed the free elementary school joined in 
their attack upon the free public high school. The social and 
industrial situation in the seventies and eighties was also such 
as to throw difficulties in the way of the free and unlimited 
growth of the high school movement. It is probably not an 
overstatement to say that the public high school in the twenty 
years following the Civil War passed through a crisis. Having 
successfully weathered the difficulties which it then encoun- 
tered, its recent history has been a record of unchecked and 
marvellously rapid growth. 

The business depression that followed the panic of 1873 
was the cause of general dissatisfaction over heavy taxes and 
led to a demand for retrenchment in public expenditures. 
High schools, being an educational novelty and calling for a 
relatively heavy outlay for each pupil in attendance, came in, 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 455 

for a vigorous attack. Elements at both extremes of the eco- 
nomic scale combined in opposition. Many of the heaviest tax- 
payers sent no children to the public hi<j;h schools and objected 
to a forced contribution to the education of Tom, Dick, and 
Harry's sons and daughters. Tom, Dick, and Harry, on the 
other hand, denied that their sons and daughters attended those 
new and expensive palaces of learning at all, as they were 
compelled to leave school at an early age to earn their living. 
They, for their part, were opposed to the high school as an 
additional example of the oppression of the poor on the part 
of the rich, and they objected to the expenditure of state and 
local taxes for an object which they were unable to take ad- 
vantage of. 

When the labor disturbances of the eighties occurred, marked 
by a signal development in the organization of labor and the 
extensive use of strikes, sometimes enforced by violent means, 
the capitalist group laid at least part of the blame for the labor 
troubles upon the high schools. They said that the high schools 
were spoiling good laboring men and turning them into white 
collar workers or into "walking delegates" and labor agitators. 
They blamed not only the high school but the entire elem.en- 
tary school curriculum as being entirely too ambitious, and 
said that it tended to educate the children of the laboring class 
beyond their station in life and then left them unable to realize 
the interests which such advanced instruction had engendered. 

The High School Established through Judicial Deci- 
sions. — The struggle which the free public high school went 
through in the seventies and eighties is indicated by a series 
of cases at law brought before the courts to restrain the action 
of local authorities in the establishment of high schools. Most 
noted of all these cases is the Kalamazoo High School Case 
which was decided by the Supreme Court of the State of 
Michigan in 1872. The case was brought by certain citizens 
of Kalamazoo against the directors of School District Xo. i 
of Kalamazoo ''to restrain the collection of such portion of 
the school taxes assessed against complainants for the year 
1872, as have been voted for the support of the high school in 



456 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

that village and for the payment of the salary of the super- 
intendent." Justice Thomas M. Cooley, in handing down the 
decision said that the real purpose of the bill was to seek 
"a judicial determination of the right of school authorities, 
in what are called union districts of the state, to levy taxes 
upon the general public for the support of what in this state 
are known as high schools, and to make free by such taxation 
the instruction of children in other languages than English." 
The decision of the Court supported the action of the school 
directors, as shown in the following words which concluded the 
Court's opinion in the case: "We content ourselves with the 
statement that neither in our state policy, in our constitution 
nor in our laws, do we find the primary school districts re- 
stricted in the branches of knowledge which their officers may 
cause to be taught, or the grade of instruction that may be 
given, if their voters consent in regular form to bear the ex- 
pense and raise the taxes for the purpose." 

The decision in the Kalamazoo Case determined the right 
of local authorities in the State of Michigan to establish high 
schools, and the decision in that case served as precedent in 
a large number of similar cases brought before the courts in 
other states in which high schools had been established without 
express legislative authorization. The general result of the 
litigation over the high school was to give it an unassailable 
legal position.^ 

It has been said above that the high school rapidly in- 
creased in numbers after about 1875. In only a few states, 
however, was this growth stimulated by general legislative 
action or state aid before the nineties. Minnesota may be 
said to have had a state high school system since 1871 and in 
1878 that state began a policy of aid to local high schools and 
provided for the first time for a state high school inspector. 
Wisconsin in 1875 passed a high school organization law and 
appropriated $25,000 for the assistance of such schools. In 

^ The contrast between the American basis and the English basis of 
secondary instruction may be seen by reference to the Cockerton 
Judgment. See p. 294. 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 457 

1885 the appropriation in aid of high schools was doubled. 
In 1 88 1 the same state inaugurated a policy of state certifica- 
tion of all high school teachers and in 1889 provided for a 
high school inspector to be subject to the orders of the state 
superintendent of public instruction. The State of Maine 
passed a high school law in 1873 and at the same time pro- 
vided a certain amount of state aid; but in 1880 the amount 
of state aid was reduced and the teaching of a foreign lan- 
guage at public expense forbidden by general statute. These 
examples of state activity in guiding or stimulating the high 
school movement are symptomatic of almost universal develop- 
ment along similar lines which began in the nineties. 

The Dual Nature of the High School.— As the high 
school continued to grow in numbers and in importance as a 
secondary school, the problem of its relationship to the college 
and the university came more and more to the front. In the 
same connection the dual nature of the American high school 
became more clearly evident. The high school represented a 
period of post-elementary school instruction which was de- 
signed to prepare the pupil more fully for the duties of life 
than the elementary school could. At the same time the high 
school came to be the only means available to large numbers 
of prospective college students for preparation to enter insti- 
tutions of higher learning. The colleges and universities gave 
way to some little extent in widening the basis of admission, 
but in general they continued to demand a type of secondary 
school training that maintained the classical studies as the 
central offering of the high schools. Obviously there would 
result from such a situation a problem difficult of solution. 
Was the high school to be regarded as a school preparatory 
for higher studies in college or university and to follow the 
curriculum that was best suited for the needs of the prospective 
college student? Or was it to be regarded as the final stage 
of a general education and thus follow the curriculum that 
would prove of the greatest usefulness in the business and 
civic life of the pupil? 

Efforts at Standardization of High Schools.— The real 



458 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

effort at solution of this impending difficulty was postponed 
for another generation, and during the period in question the 
institutions of higher learning were able in general to main- 
tain their position. They were confronted, too, with the very 
real problem of keeping up standards in face of a general 
demand that the candidates for college study who had been 
prepared in the state high schools should be admitted to col- 
lege and university privileges. The beginnings of state inspec- 
tion of high schools represented progress in the matter of high 
school standards. Other means taken to the same end were 
the accrediting of the high schools of a state by the state 
university as was begun by the University of Michigan in 
1 87 1. In the State of Indiana, the state board of education 
began in 1873 a system of high school accrediting by which 
the graduate of any local high school which was on the state 
board's accredited list might be admitted to the state univer- 
sity without examination. 

The efforts of state boards of education and of state univer- 
sities to establish standards for the high schools, which had 
only slight development before 1890, were paralleled by the 
organization of the New England Association of Colleges and 
Preparatory Schools in 1885, out of which soon grew the Com- 
mission of Colleges in New England on Admission Examina- 
tions. The New England Association was followed in the 
nineties by other regional associations of college and secondary 
school men. The efforts of all these associations tended toward 
a uniformity of high school curriculums and standards where 
college entrance was involved. For the most part, however, 
the high school curriculum remained unstandardized. Local 
authorities were free to determine the subjects to be taught, 
and in the general absence of state courses of study or other 
authoritative standards for their guidance there existed a 
thoroughly chaotic condition in respect to subjects, materials, 
equipment, and qualifications of teachers. 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 459 

Industrial Education 

The marvellous growth of factory industry which took place 
after the Civil War, and the accompanying breakdown of the 
old system of trade training through apprenticeship, led to 
considerable agitation for the inauguration in the public schools 
of some form of industrial education. The publications of the 
U. S. Bureau of Education contained frequent accounts of 
industrial education in the European countries and the meet- 
ings of educational associations gave much time to discussions 
of the question. A special Department of Industrial Education 
of the National Educational Association was organized in 
1875. In the early discussions of industrial education there 
was no clear distinction made between the economic and the 
educational benefits that were supposed to issue from hand- 
work carried on in the schools. There were supporters of 
manual training as a phase of all-round human development, 
who based their advocacy of such work in the schools on the 
psychological relationship between sense experience, idea, and 
action. According to their conception, industrial education 
meant construction in all sorts of materials as carried on in 
any school from the kindergarten upward. At the other ex- 
treme were advocates of manual training who believed that the 
general facility in the use of tools and the general familiarity 
with processes of construction which a pupil would gain from 
handwork in the schools would serve as very real preparation 
for the actual business of factory scale industry. The former 
group of advocates indignantly rejected the utility plea of the 
latter group; while the practical propagandists of the concep- 
tion of manual training apparently accepted the views of both. 
At any rate the eighties saw considerable adoption of manual 
training in the grades and the establishment of numerous so- 
called manual training high schools. 

The first state action that took place in response to the 
demand for better preparation of artisans and foremen for 
their work, was the passage by the Massachusetts legislature 
in 1870 of a law which made it obligatory upon all cities and 



46o NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

towns containing 10,000 inhabitants to make provision for 
free instruction in mechanical drawing for persons over fifteen 
years of age in day or evening school. Three years later 
Massachusetts established a State Normal Art School for the 
better preparation of teachers of drawing. In 1888 in New 
York an act empowered local school authorities to establish 
"industrial training departments" for teaching and illustrating 
the manual or industrial arts and their underlying principles. 
A number of private trade and technical schools were opened 
before 1890, and a number of private evening schools for in- 
struction in drawing, science, and mathematics, carried on an 
important work during this period. 

As can be seen from the summary of provisions that had 
been made for industrial education and the mixed theory 
which had led to the development of the manual training work 
in the elementary and high schools, the problem of vocational 
education had hardly been taken up in the United States be- 
fore 1890. 

The Preparation of Teachers 

The normal school was rapidly adopted by the states after 
the Civil War. In 1871 the Report of the United States 
Commissioner of Education showed that there were fifty-one 
normal schools supported by twenty-three different states. 
Sixteen cities had also inaugurated this type of institution for 
the improvement of the local supply of teachers. In addition 
to the normal schools supported by public authorities there 
were forty-three private schools. In 1889- 1890 there were one 
hundred thirty-five normal schools in thirty-nine states sup- 
ported either wholly or in part out of public funds. The num- 
ber of private normal schools at that time was forty-three. 

After the introduction of the Pestalozzian ideas into the 
Oswego Normal School in 1861, followed by the favorable 
report of a Committee of the National Teachers Association 
in 1862 on the system being practiced in the Oswego school, 
the pedagogical instruction in the normal schools of the United 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 461 

States definitely reflected the Pestalozzian influence. In the 
discussions of method during the sixties and the seventies, 
oral instruction and object teaching had first place. With the 
development of interest in the so-called industrial education 
in the eighties and the introduction of the kindergarten, 
Froebel's theories began to divide honors with those of Pes- 
talozzi. The place of the practice or model school came in 
also for considerable discussion, and by the nineties it had 
been definitely accepted as a necessary part of the normal 
school equipment. 

Throughout this entire period, however, the place and the 
purpose of the normal school in the system of public education 
remained uncertain. In many localities the dearth of secon- 
dary schools made it necessary for the normal schools to take 
a large proportion of candidates without any preparation be- 
yond that which they could secure in the elementary schools — 
some of them very poor rural schools. The normal schools in 
such localities had large numbers of students who attended the 
normals in the absence of any other opportunity to get higher 
instruction than their locality offered. Even where the pupil 
was a prospective teacher and in need of distinctively pro- 
fessional training, the meager academic equipment which he 
or she brought with him made it necessary for the normal 
course to include instruction in the common school branches 
of elementary grade. During this period no typical normal 
course can be described; for there were schools bearing that 
name and offering certificates of attendance and proficiency of 
various grades. Many of the normal schools offered a two- 
year course which accepted anyone with an elementary 
school education, while others had been able to differentiate 
their courses for the students entering with high school prepa- 
ration and to give a more extended course of two years, to 
which the graduates of the more elementary course were 
eligible. The general situation was chaotic in the extreme. 

An agency that was frequently, indeed almost universally, 
used during this period for the improvement of teachers in 
service, was the teachers institute. Legislation providing for 



462 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

such meetings of teachers and prescribing the duties of school 
officers with reference to them, is found in almost all the 
states. 

Compulsory Attendance 

If the United States has been generous beyond all other 
modern nations in extending the privileges of free education, 
it has been slow to insure the universal acceptance of educa- 
tional opportunity. The first modem compulsory attendance 
law in the United States was passed in Massachusetts in 1852. 
This law required the attendance of every child between the 
ages of eight and fourteen years annually at school for at least 
twelve weeks, six of which should be consecutive. The Dis- 
trict of Columbia followed with a compulsory attendance 
regulation in 1864 and Vermont passed such a law in 1867. 
Fourteen other states passed compulsory education laws in 
the seventies and nine in the eighties. In 1889 twenty-five 
states, none of which was south of Mason-and-Dixon's line, 
had some sort of compulsory attendance law. Maryland, 
Texas and Arizona had had such laws but had repealed them 
or allowed them to lapse. But of all this legislation designed 
to get children to school, the report of the Commissioner of 
Education, 1889-1890, says: "Except in Connecticut and in 
certain municipalities in perhaps half a dozen other states, 
compulsory laws have been entirely inoperative, and have had 
no effect on attendance one way or the other, except it may be 
a temporary one immediately following their first enactment; 
in some cases, their very existence is unknown or has been 
forgotten by most persons." ^ In later pages of the same 
report, Massachusetts is joined with Connecticut as an exam- 
ple of the better enforcement of compulsory attendance laws. 
The statement is made in the same connection that sentiment 
for compulsory attendance was growing, as no less than six- 
teen states and territories between 1886 and 1891 had passed 
new laws on the subject or strengthened existing ones. The 
principal defect in all of the early compulsory attendance legis- 

'Rep. U. S. Commissioner of Education, iS88-i88g, Vol. I, p. 15. 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 463 

lation was the fact that, outside of Connecticut, its enforce- 
ment was left entirely to local authorities who were either 
indifferent to the success of the measures or openly hostile 
to it. 

Rural Schools 

The educational progress which took place in the United 
States between 1861 and 1890 occurred largely in connection 
with the city schools. The open country and the rural village 
continued to maintain schools which, almost without excep- 
tion, resembled closely those which had served fifty years be- 
fore that time. The supply of schools had increased, to be 
sure, to keep pace with the spread of population in all the 
states, but the quality of instruction given was little better 
than that which the preceding generation of country boys and 
girls had enjoyed — or suffered under. In Circular of Infor- 
mation, 1884, No. 6, of the Bureau of Education occurs the 
following description of the rural school of that time. "A 
school composed of scholars of both sexes, ranging in study 
anywhere from the primer to Euclid, housed in a schoolhouse 
of but one room and provided with but one teacher upon 
whom devolves all the instruction and discipline. Possibly the 
teacher changes every term; probably no systematic record 
of studies, classes or progress is kept, and each teacher takes 
up the work as if nothing had gone before and ends it as if 
nothing were to follow. ... Of supervision there is little, of 
inspection less, and of standards of scholarship and tests of 
work none but those the teacher has wit enough to supply." 

The backwardness of the rural schools was the counterpart 
of the slight development which had taken place at this time 
of adequate state supervision and state aid, of the weakness 
of the county administration, and of the atomic division of 
the population and wealth of the state into school districts. 
Large local powers made for progress in the cities, but in the 
small towns and the open country the possession of extensive 
authority was simply an invitation to remain inactive. The 



464 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

inequality of resources in many of the rural districts also made 
school improvement difficult even where it was desired. High 
school facilities for. rural children were practically unknown 
outside of New England. 

In a few states an effort had been made to classify the work 
of the rural schools and to introduce some uniformity of 
achievement. Wisconsin as early as 1872 had adopted a 
course of study for rural schools. In Indiana in 1884 a 
standard course of study for one-room country schools was 
prepared by a committee of the County Superintendents 
Association and adopted by that body. Pupils completing the 
course were presented with diplomas, and graduating exercises 
were held in each township. 

Such examples of rural school improvement before 1890 
were infrequent enough, however. The country schools needed 
more money, more supervision, more stimulation from above, 
and a larger unit of maintenance and control. It was only 
after some or all of these changes occurred that rural educa- 
tion began to take on new life. That awakening in itself is 
one of the significant facts of a new era of public education 
in the United States which began about 1890. 

The Changes of Twenty-five Years 

Educational statistics are available for the period i860- 1890 
only after the United States Bureau of Education began its 
work. In the twenty years following 1870 the population of 
the country at large increased from about thirty-eight and a 
half to about sixty-two and a half millions, which is an in- 
crease of sixty-two per cent. During the same period the 
value of the property devoted to public school purposes in- 
creased over one hundred sixty per cent, and the annual ex- 
penditures for public schools increased over one hundred 
twenty per cent. The percentage of children of school age 
enrolled increased from fifty-seven per cent in 1870 to sixty- 
eight and one-half per cent. 

The figures given above describe quantity of school perform- 



GROWTH AND UNIFICATION 465 

ance and they are seen to indicate that the nation at large 
was more than meeting the strain put upon its resources to 
keep up with an unprecedented increase of population. But 
the figures that could indicate actual improvement in the 
quality of educational conditions are not anything like so 
favorable. The average number of days the schools were in 
session increased between 1870 and 1890 only from 132.2 to 
134.7, although it is only fair to add that substantial increases 
in other sections were offset by actual decreases in the South 
Atlantic and South Central Divisions. The shorter term in 
those sections resulted from the opening of many short term 
schools in the rural districts. In those twenty years just 
eight days were added to the average number of days attended 
by each pupil enrolled, the change being from 78.4 days per 
year to 86.3 days. The total annual expenditure per capita 
for school purposes showed an increase of thirty-six per cent 
while the total annual expenditure per pupil in average at- 
tendance increased only ten per cent. The gross increase in 
the number of high school pupils between 1871 and 1890 was 
over 150 per cent, or about two and one-half times as great 
as the increase of population during the same period. At 
that, only one out of every three hundred of the total popula- 
tion was attending a public secondary school in 1890. 

The period of twenty-five years which followed the Civil 
War saw the spread of the free elementary school over the 
entire new West and also the adoption of free public school 
systems in the South. The South, laboring under the burden 
of a double school system to provide for the separate educa- 
tion of white and black children, greatly crippled by the eco- 
nomic losses of the Civil War, socially disturbed by the ad- 
mission to full Anglo-Saxon privileges of a population far below 
the white scale of civilization and culture in that section, and 
handicapped by the absence of industrT5?%development — in 
spite of all these drawbacks the South had endeavored to 
supply public elementary schools for all, and had pretty well 
succeeded in bringing that grade of instruction within the 
reach of all children. In the newer western states pioneer 



466 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

conditions continued to rule. The most conspicuous educa- 
tional developments had occurred in the cities of the East and 
the Middle West, but even in those localities the economic 
stress of providing the material facilities of education inter- 
fered with the technical improvement of the schools. As far 
as the rural schools were concerned little had been done to 
make them better than they had been a generation earlier. 

In spite of the increasing industrialization of our economic 
life in the quarter century following the Civil War, in spite 
of the dilution of the electorate by large numbers of foreign 
immigrants, in spite of the sharper differences in wealth and 
way of life among the classes of society which had come about, 
the American people had kept the faith of democratic edu- 
cational opportunity. The triumph of the high school in the 
crisis which it underwent in the seventies and the eighties is 
one of the most significant facts in our educational history. 
It represented a guarantee that no matter whether our eco- 
nomic and social life was to approximate more and more 
closely to Old World conditions, the schools were to be made 
to serve as a balance to offset those conditions and to preserve 
as fully as possible that free opportunity for individuals to 
improve their personal condition which had been the glory 
of pioneer days. 

The principle of local autonomy in school affairs continued 
almost without change as the guiding spirit of American edu- 
cation during the period under discussion; but the disadvan- 
tages of too complete local control were beginning to be felt 
and significant extensions of the prerogatives of the central 
authorities had taken place. Educational leaders had come 
by the end of this period to realize that, with due respect to 
the just rights of local authorities, the state departments of 
education should be given considerably enlarged powers, and 
that an adequate system of intermediate control should be 
established between the state authorities and the too-frequently 
unprogressive district trustees. They saw, too, that the school 
district was too small and too poor in itself to provide really 
excellent educational opportunities for the children of its in- 



GROWTH AXD UNIFICATION 467 

habitants. Conditions were ripe for the great extension of 
the functions of the state authorities and for the reorganization 
of local authorities which were to have conspicuous develop- 
ment in the succeeding generation. 

ADDITIONAL READINGS 

General Historical Background.^Beard and Beard, History of 
the United States; West, History of the American People; Pa.xson, The 
Xew Nation; Fleming, Tlie Sequel of Appomattox; Bogart, Economic 
History of the United States. 

Education Sources. — Reports of the United States Commissioner 
of Education; Federal Bills and Acts; Reports of State Educational 
Officials; State Legislation. 

Secondary Accounts. — Cubberley, Public Education in the United 
States; Brown, The Making of Our Middle Schools; Knight, The Influ- 
ence of Reconstruction on Education in the South; Cyclopedia of Edu- 
cation, Articles on Education in the Various States. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NATIONAL CON- 
SCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION (FROM 
ABOUT 1890 TO THE PRESENT) 

Social and Economic Changes during the Post-Civil 
War Period Recalled. — The preceding chapter of this book 
has noted the profound changes in the Hfe of the people which 
occurred during the first twenty-five years following the War 
between the States. In those years cities multiplied and the 
percentage of urban population steadily and rapidly mounted. 
Foreigners swarmed to the hospitable shores of the United 
States to find homes. The range and amount of manufactures 
progressed in giant strides. A network of railways covered 
the land and the telegraph lines followed them. With the 
annihilation of space thus brought about, the scope of busi- 
ness became nationwide. Tremendous combinations of capital 
in industry and in transportation carried on business in all 
states of the Union, and they were able to secure advantages 
from consolidations and trade agreements that worked hard- 
ship both upon their weak competitors and the pubUc, 
Efforts to control these interstate carriers and corporations 
through legislation in the separate states led to political cor- 
ruption of lawmakers, and at best the laws of states proved 
inadequate to handle a situation that had ceased to be local 
and had become national. The business and transportation 
interests also found themselves in the market for municipal 
franchises or privileges, which in turn led to the formation of 
a close alliance between big business and corrupt party ma- 
chines in the cities. The industrial progress and even the 
stupendous increase in agricultural production had largely 
rested upon the unexampled natural resources in mine, forest, 

468 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 469 

and soil which a practically virgin land afforded, and exploita- 
tion had gone on apace without thought of conservation. 

Accelerated Growth after 1890. — In so far as major eco- 
nomic and social conditions are concerned, the thirty years 
following 1890 are of a piece with the thirty years that pre- 
ceded that date. Population continued to increase, at a 
somewhat lowered percentage," but with an ever mounting 
gross addition. In 1890 the population of the United States 
was almost sixty-three millions. In 1900 it stood at seventy- 
six millions; in 19 10, at almost ninety-two millions, and in 
1920 it had reached the total of more than one hundred five 
millions. The increase of cities and city population continued 
without interruption and was even accelerated. In 1890 there 
were twenty-eight cities with a population of one hundred 
thousand or more; in 1900, there were thirty-eight; in 19 10, 
fifty; and in 1920, sixty-nine. In 1890, 35.4 per cent of the 
population lived in urban territory; ^ in 1900, 40 per cent; 
in 1910, 45.8 per cent; while in 1920, the census figures show 
that more persons, that is to say, 51.4 per cent of the total, 
were living in cities or incorporated places than were living 
in rural villages and the open country. 

The flood of immigration continued up to the outbreak of 
the World War without abatement, with the result that the 
proportion of foreign born in the total population showed no 
decline between 1890 and 1920, standing at about thirteen 
or fourteen per cent. It is of profound sociological and edu- 
cational significance that the great majority of the foreign- 
born have found their way to the cities and have continued 
to live in groups that tend to preserve their native languages 
and to a considerable extent their native ways and thoughts. 
In 19 10, over seventy-eight per cent of the foreign-born lived 
in cities. 

The material wealth of the country has during the past 
thirty years continued to increase with ever greater accelera- 
tion. In 1890, the total value of farm property was sixteen 
billion dollars; in 19 10, forty-one billions; and in 1920, almost 

* According to the definition of the iq2o census. 



470 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

seventy-eight billions. In 1890, the value of farm crops was 
two and a half billions; in 19 10, eight and a half billions; 
while in 1919, under the influence of high prices, it reached the 
total of almost seventy-eight billions. Between 1889 and 19 14 
the value of manufactured products increased from, nine to 
twenty-four billions. Between 1890 and 1920 the value of 
the minerals taken out of mines, quarries, and oil and gas 
wells increased from six hundred six millions to six thousand 
seven hundred millions.^ 

The Development of New Social Controls. — If one 
should concentrate his attention upon statistics alone, he 
would not be able to draw a line through the history of the 
United States at about the year 1890. The same forces that 
had operated before that date continued to operate thereafter, 
and the trend toward industrialism and urbanization continued 
without change or interruption. If one turns his attention, 
however, to the social controls that affect the conduct of busi- 
ness, the years after 1890 represent a new era. This was not 
unmistakably evident until after the new century had come in, 
but it may be said that from 1890 on a new social conscience 
was in control and a new social efficiency was seen to be 
developing. 

It will be impossible in this connection to more than indi- 
cate the general lines along which superior social controls 
have developed, but it seems essential to point out, at least, a 
number of changes in the economic and political life of the 
country that are closely related to problems of education. 

Political Reforms. — As a means of combating the wide- 
spread condition of political corruption which obtained all over 
the United States in the years following the Civil War, ballot 
reforms were instituted that made it less easy for the party 
boss to deliver the vote for which he had been paid by cor- 
rupting interests. In 1888 Massachusetts adopted a modifica- 
tion of the Australian ballot law, which guaranteed secrecy 
to the voter. By 1892, thirty-three states had adopted the 
Australian ballot system. Haviiig thus weakened the power of 
^ Figures taken from the Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1920. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 471 

sinister influences at the polls, the party of reform pressed on 
to capture the yet stronger citadel of the party boss, namely, 
the party primary. As long as the bosses could choose the 
candidates among whom the voter might choose, his power 
continued to be paramount, and it was seen to be necessary to 
make the party primaries a part of the legal system of elec- 
tions. The first extensive victory for popular control of nomi- 
nations was won in Minnesota in 1901. Since that time it has 
secured wide adoption throughout the United States, although 
without the decisive political improvement hoped for. 

Important changes have taken place, also, in the administra- 
tion of city government. Changes have been made in the 
direction of centralizing responsibility so that some person or 
persons in the city administration may be held immediately 
accountable to the voters for mismanagement or corruption. 
Reforms have taken the way of more power for mayors and 
of the commission form of government. 

Civil Service Reform. — Of great significance also is the 
extension which has taken place of the principle of fitness for 
office as indicated by examinations and supported by uninter- 
rupted tenure during good behavior. Civil Service Reform 
has not altogether supplanted the spoils system of political 
administration, but it has made vast strides in that direction. 
Beginning in 1884, 13,780 employees of the national govern- 
ment were placed upon the Civil Service list. By 191 2, the 
number of federal employees so classified was about 278,000, 
while 56,000 remained subject to removal from political 
motives. As the business of the state and federal governments 
has grown in volume and intricacy, it has increasingly called 
for the service of experts or at least of competent men. The 
need for such service comes more and more completely to be 
met by the appointment of civil employees on the grounds of 
their technical efficiency in doing the work expected of them. 
By 191 2 nearly two-thirds of the whole number of public 
employees, in the United States — federal, state, county, munici- 
pal, and village^were being appointed on a merit basis. • 

'See Report, iqi2, National Civil Service Commission. 



472 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

Extension of the Prerogatives of the National 
Government 

In an earlier connection it has been pointed out that in the 
generation following the Civil War, there was considerable 
increase in the powers of the national government as contrasted 
with purely state functions. The economic life had undergone 
changes that really made the country one. The development 
of transportation by rail, the growth of the corporations, and 
the vast increase in the amount of interstate business, intro- 
duced conditions which the individual states were unable to 
cope with. By 1890, the necessity that lay upon the federal 
government of entering a field of administration that had 
previously been regarded as constitutionally limited to the 
state governments, had become evident. Big business had 
become national in its scope and organization. It could be 
controlled only by an agency which had national jurisdiction. 

National Control of Interstate Commerce. — In 1887 
Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act which created 
an Interstate Commerce Commission and forbade a number of 
practices which had resulted in restraint of trade. Three years 
later the Sherman Anti-Trust Act declared illegal every con- 
tract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or con- 
spiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several 
states, or with foreign nations, and provided penalties for the 
infraction of the law. Both these laws, however, failed for 
many years of achieving this purpose, except in very slight 
measure. It was only in Roosevelt's second administration 
that the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was turned upon some notori- 
ous trusts. Prosecutions conducted by the Attorney General 
resulted in dissolving some of the more conspicuous combina- 
tions of capital. The power of the federal government over 
corporations was greatly strengthened by the creation in 1903 
of a Department of Commerce and Labor, and the establish- 
ment within the Department of a Bureau of Corporations. 
This Bureau was empowered to collect all sorts of desirable 
information relating to the business of corporations doing 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 473 

interstate business, including common carriers. In 1906 the 
Hepburn Railway Act strengthened the Interstate Commerce 
Commission by giving it power to fix rates and to prescribe a 
uniform system of accounting for all railroads. In 19 14, 
Congress created a Federal Trade Commission with extensive 
powers over corporations which were using unfair methods 
of competition. Still further controls over trusts were pro- 
vided by the Clayton Act of the same year. The culmination 
of the congressional acts which tended to give the federal 
government more and more adequate powers to control inter- 
state railway transportation occurred in the Esch-Cummins 
Act of 1920, which created a Railroad Board of Labor Adjust- 
ment to pass upon wages and working conditions, gave the 
Interstate Commerce Commission power to fix such freight 
and passenger rates as will give the roads a net operating 
income of 5^ or 6 per cent on the fair valuation of their 
property devoted to transportation, and provided for the 
formation of railway combinations subject to the approval 
of the Interstate Commerce Commission. By this series of 
acts it is seen that the federal government has accepted 
responsibility for regulating a system of production and 
exchange which is strictly national in range and which can be 
adequately controlled only by federal law and administration. 

New Departments of National Administration. — The 
larger interest of the federal government in matters which had 
earlier been considered as pertaining to the states is seen like- 
wise in the creation of new departments of administration. In 
1889, the Department of Agriculture was separately established 
with a Secretary having a seat in the President's Cabinet. In 
1903, as mentioned above, a Department of Commerce and 
Labor was created, and in 19 13 that Department was divided 
and the Department of Commerce and the Department of 
Labor were placed under separate heads. 

The full story of the growth of the federal government's 
participation in affairs which once had been strictly state con- 
cerns could be shown only by the record of the increasing 
business and personnel of the departments mentioned and of 



474 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

other departments to which were assigned duties involving the 
same class of affairs. x\n example of this growth will be given 
in a later connection in an effort to show the increasing activity 
of the federal government in the field of education or closely 
related fields. Another easily recognizable extension of federal 
activities is seen in the growth of the postal service. The 
organization of rural free delivery and the establishment of 
the parcels post and postal savings banks have combined to 
bring the service of the national government home to every 
individual every day of his life. The passage of the income 
tax amendment and the levying of a federal income tax; the 
passage of a national woman suffrage amendment; the pas- 
sage of the prohibition amendment; the cooperative arrange- 
ment between the federal and the state governments for the 
building of highways; the Federal Farm Loan Bureau; — these 
are only some of the more conspicuous cases of enlarged federal 
prerogatives and only the more striking examples of the evo- 
lution of a truly national administration of government. 

The Conservation Movement. — Before undertaking a 
more detailed description of the enlarged educational activities 
which the federal government has assumed within a generation, 
it is desirable to point out a new note in American public policy. 
The period following the Civil War was one of ruthless exploi- 
tation. The later years brought with them serious concern 
over the wastefulness that accompanied the absence of a public 
policy regarding national resources, and saw the beginnings of 
the movement for conservation. First to feel the new impulse 
was the province of agriculture. The farmers were extracting 
fertility from the soil in the form of cereal and other crops and 
were putting nothing back. The policy of prodigality had been 
possible owing to the abundance of virgin soil; but in 1890 the 
Commissioner of the Public Domain announced that the end 
of the frontier had been reached. The good land had practi- 
cally all been taken up, and it was seen that the policy of 
abandoning wornout land for new could no longer be followed. 
The farmer had to learn how to conserve the productiveness 
of his land. The national government took cognizance of this 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 475 

new condition in one of its early and most significant excur- 
sions into the field of education, when it donated money to 
the Land Grant Colleges (see p. 000) in 1887 for the pro- 
motion of the scientific study of agriculture. The elevation 
of the Department of Agriculture to the Cabinet was a response 
to the same fact. 

Acts of Congress passed in 1891 and 1909 were intended to 
conserve the remaining timber wealth on the public domain and 
executive action in the latter year set aside millions of acres 
of forest reserves. Many states have followed the lead of the 
federal government in their creation of state forest reserves. 
The real beginning of the movement to conserve natural re- 
sources began in 1908 at a meeting of governors called by 
President Roosevelt, and in the appointment that same year 
of the National Conservation Commission. The reports of 
this Commission have awakened the people to the significance 
of the problem of conservation of natural resources. With the 
passage of the Newlands Reclamation Act in 1902, the federal 
government began the construction of a series of gigantic irri- 
gation projects for the reclamation of vast areas of western 
desert that required only water to make them veritable gardens 
of luxuriant growth. 

Other Extensions of Government. — The conservation of 
human, no less than of material, resources has become an 
interest of government. The earlier phases of the industrial 
revolution saw truly frightful exploitation of the men, women, 
and children engaged in factory labor. Up to 1890 only the 
beginnings of factory legislation in the United States had 
taken place. Since then, the states and the nation have passed 
laws that were designed to lessen the risk of industrial accident, 
to improve the moral and sanitary conditions under which work 
was done, to provide compensation for workmen injured in 
pursuit of their calling, to protect women and children from 
burdensome hours of labor, and to keep children of tender 
years out of the factory and in the school. What is even more 
important, they have in many instances developed a machinery 
of administration which is adequate to guarantee the fulfil- 



476 xMATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

ment of the intention of those laws. Another phase of human 
conservation is the extensive service which federal and state 
governments have undertaken in the interest of the public 
health. And in the ultimate analysis, indeed, all the activities 
of government in connection with public education are to be 
described under the general caption of the conservation, the 
utilization, and the cultivation of the human resources of the 
nation. 

The Practical Disappearance of Sectionalism 

The influence of the railroads and the telegraph in bringing 
the vast geographical area of the United States together into 
a single cultural community has been pointed out in an earlier 
connection. For the first generation after the Civil War, the 
North and the South continued living over again the bitter mis- 
understandings of the past, and "waving the bloody shirt" con- 
tinued to be a popular diversion of Northern Congressmen. 
But the South was changing. The older generation was dis- 
appearing and the new demands of a new economic day were 
modifying the perspective of all. The South remains today 
predominantly a rural section, but the importance of its in- 
dustrial life is rapidly increasing. The textile industries of the 
towns of the Piedmont, the steel and iron interests of the 
mountain country, the increased production of coal and lum- 
ber and phosphate, the development of tobacco manufactures, 
and many other items of industrial activity, have modified the 
exclusively agricultural interest of the South and have in- 
creased the city population and multiplied wealth. 

Beginning with the new constitution adopted by the State 
of Mississippi in 1890, the Southern States began the elimina- 
tion of the negro from politics through the devices of poll 
taxes, registration, and literacy and other tests that operate 
more heavily against the negroes than against the whites. The 
"grandfather clauses" of a number of state constitutions re- 
serve the right to vote to any one who voted before 1867 or 
who is the descendant of any one who so voted. Such a con- 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 477 

dition relieves the white man of disabilities which effectually 
restrain the negro from voting. All this discrimination has had 
substantially the effect of reintroducing a normal basis of po- 
litical division into the South. So long as the Democratic Party 
was the white man's party and the Republican the black man's, 
the South was politically solid on the ever present issue of white 
supremacy. Such a condition exists pretty much today, but 
there are signs that the white South is beginning to break up 
as a traditional political unit and to exhibit the same divisions 
on political issues as the rest of the country. 

The national military experiences — the short war with 
Spain and the truly tremendous effort which the nation put 
forth against the Central Powers — showed an entire absence 
of anything like sectionalism in the South. In both wars, the 
full loyalty and the unstinted service of the men and women 
of the South equalled the loyalty and labors of the citizens of 
any other part of the country. The South remains different 
from the North as it remains different from the Central West, 
but it exhibits only such differences from other sections as they 
in turn exhibit as compared with one another. For the first 
time in the history of the United States there has come about 
a unity on a truly national scale. Its basis is a common tra- 
dition and an interdependent economic life. The abundant 
and easy means of transportation, the multiplication of means 
of instantaneous communication, and the spread of agencies 
of culture that exhibit national scope are sufficient guarantees 
that the unity which has at last been achieved will not only 
continue, but will become stronger with the passing of years. 

The foregoing sketch of the changing economic and political 
conditions, the changing social attitudes, and the developing so- 
cial controls which have had place in the generation following 
the eighties of the last century, is confessedly inadequa te. It 
is thought, however, that the examples given may be sufficient 
to indicate important modifications of public opinion and 
changes in civil administration which have occurred within 
that period and to serve as a basis for understanding the pro- 



478 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

found changes which have taken place and are continuing 
without abatement to take place in that special field of public 
administration which is the province of this study. 



The Federal Government and Public Education 

The Hatch Experiment Station Act. — In 1887, Congress 
passed a law, commonly known as the Hatch Experiment Sta- 
tion Act, which appropriated to each of the various states and 
territories the annual sum of $15,000 for the establishment of 
agricultural experiment stations in connection with the colleges 
established under the provisions of the Morrill Land Grant 
Act (see p. 425). The researches to be conducted under the 
provisions of the act included the entire range of the factors 
that condition agricultural production. The application of 
the funds was to be made by the executive officers of the state 
experiment stations, but the Commissioner of Agriculture (now 
Secretary) was directed to furnish forms for the tabulation 
of results or statistics, to indicate such lines of inquiry as 
should seem most important, and in general to furnish such 
advice and assistance as would best promote the purpose of 
the act. Each station was called upon in performance of its 
work to submit to the governor of the state or territory in 
which it was located a full annual report of its operations and 
financial accounts, a copy of which report was to be sent to 
each of the experiment stations in the country at large .and to 
the Commissioner of Agriculture and to the 'Treasurer of the 
United States. 

The terms of the Hatch Experiment Station Act are of large 
significance. In that act we see the determination of the 
United States government to expand greatly its activities in a 
field wherein it had pre\iiously made some experimental steps. 
In the interests of agricultural production and the conservation 
of the soil, both of which are supreme factors in national 
wealth, health, and.strength, the federal government opened its 
purse to the .states and designated in a general way the pur- 
poses to which the money grants were to oe devoted. It gave 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 479 

the Commissioner of Agriculture general direction over the 
work to be conducted and gave him a position of leadership 
and responsibility. On the other hand, it allowed the states, 
through the state experiment stations, a pretty free hand in the 
determination of what they should do and how they should do 
it. Each state was free to conduct the type of experimentation 
which was of most immediate interest to its citizens and of 
most significance for its own agricultural progress and pros- 
perity. But in the provisions for annual reports to the office 
of the Commissioner of Agriculture, the interchange of annual 
reports among all the stations, and the quarterly publication of 
the results of investigation in the Experiment Station Record, 
which was given the franking privilege in the United States 
mails, we can see" a system organized whereby the efforts and 
successes of each state were enabled to aid all and whereby the 
guidance and the stimulation of an efficient central office could 
give unity and standing to the combined labors of all. 

In 1906 the annual contribution of the federal government 
to the state experiment stations was increased to $20,000, with 
provision for an annual increment of $2000 until the appro- 
priation to each should be $30,000 a year. 

In 1890, an act, usually spoken of as the Second Morrill 
Act, added to the federal support of the Land Grant Colleges 
an annual money appropriation of $15,000, which was to be 
increased by annual increments of $1,000 until the total annual 
amount contributed to each of the states and territories for the 
support of the institutions established according to the terms of 
the first Morrill Act should be $25,000. This act, as did the 
original Morrill Land Grant Act, handed the federal bounty 
over to the states for their use with a minimum of restrictions. 

Federal Grants on Admission of the Later States. — In 
1889, four new states were admitted to the Union and in 
1890 two more. As in the case of all the earlier new states 
which were carved out of the public domain, the federal govern- 
ment upon their admission confirmed to the states of North 
Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and 
Wyoming the customary grants for the support of common 



48o NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

and higher schools, but in considerably increased amount. 
North Dakota, for example, received the sixteenth and the 
thirty-sixth sections, as had been the common rule since the 
admission of California in 1850, and the five-per-cent-of-land- 
sales grant. In addition 500,000 acres were donated to the 
state for the support of higher and special institutions. Of this 
amount, 40,000 acres went to endow a state university; 40,000, 
a school of mines; 40,000, an agricultural college; 80,000, 
state normal schools; 40,000, a reform school; 40,000, a deaf 
and dumb asylum; 50,000, public buildings; and 170,000, 
other educational and charitable purposes. The enabling act 
definitely specified that the land so donated should be used 
for the support of a system of free public schools extending 
through all grades up to and including the normal and collegi- 
ate course, and that the schools should be free from denomina- 
tional or sectarian control. All the other states admitted with 
North Dakota experienced the same generous degree of federal 
support and the states admitted since that time have been 
awarded equal or larger grants. Arizona, for example, admit- 
ted in 191 2, received 200,000 acres of public land for a univer- 
sity; 100,000 for institutions for the deaf, dumb, and blind; 
200,000 for normal schools; 100,000 for charitable, penal and 
reformatory institutions; 150,000 for agricultural and mechan- 
ical colleges; 150,000 for a school of mines; 100,000 for mili- 
tary institutes; 3,000,000 for meeting the school debts of 
counties and districts, — in addition to four sections in each 
township for the public schools and the promise of five per cent 
of the net proceeds from the sale of public lands in the state. 
Much of this land at the time of the grant was of low value, 
but a conservative estimate of the value of this land endowment 
in 191 1 places it at the sum of $20,000,000.^ 

New Demands for Federal Participation in General 
Education. — For ten years after the passage of the second act 
relating to agricultural experiment stations, the federal gov- 
ernment passed no significant new legislation extending its edu- 
cational activities. About 1906 a new interest was awakened 

^See Arizona Journal of Education, December, igii. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 481 

in the subject of federal aid, largely in connection with a 
greatly increased agitation which began about that time for 
greater attention to vocational education. Congress in that 
year made an appropriation to the Department of Agriculture 
for an investigation of farmers' institutes and agricultural 
schools. In 1908 Representative Davis introduced a bill be- 
fore the House which provided for an appropriation for agri- 
cultural and industrial subjects in secondary schools, agricul- 
tural and industrial subjects in normal schools, and for branch 
agricultural experiment stations. In the same year a bill was 
introduced into Congress by Senator Stephenson to create 
an executive Department of Education with a secretary hav- 
ing a seat in the President's Cabinet. Another bill introduced 
in 1908 provided for the establishment of a national university 
at Washington. None of these bills was favorably received. 
In 1910 Senator Dolliver introduced a bill providing federal 
aid for the promotion of secondary instruction in agriculture 
and mechanic arts. This bill was favorably reported out of 
committee, but went no further. Agitation for federal aid to 
vocational education continued with still greater energy in 
spite of these early failures, and in 19 14 Congress yielded to 
the extent of appointing a Commission on National Aid to 
V^ocational Education. A report was made later in the year 
1914 and a bill was drawn up by the Commission, This bill, 
after various legislative vicissitudes, was enacted in 191 7 in 
substantially the form in which it was originally presented and 
thus became what is commonly known as the Smith-Hughes Act. 
The Smith-Lever Act. — Meantime, however, the friends 
of agriculture and rural life improvement had succeeded in 
having passed an act known as the Smith-Lever Act, which 
represented the most significant excursion of the United States 
government into the field of education that it had taken up to 
that time. The advance made under the Smith-Lever Act 
of 19 14 was relatively easy for Congress, because in a sense 
it did not directly affect the schools. It was in reality a tre- 
mendous extension of the work of the state experiment 
stations, which had long been in close connection with the 



482 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

federal Department of Agriculture. The act provided for 
large federal grants to the states for "diffusing among the 
people of the United States useful and practical information 
on subjects relating to agriculture and home economics, and 
to encourage the application of the same." In other words, 
the act was intended to carry the work of the experiment sta- 
tions to the people of the states through what is commonly 
known as university extension. That has been accomplished 
through the organization on the part of the state experiment 
stations, which is to say the Land-Grant Colleges, of farmers' 
institutes, boys' and girls' clubs, and cooperative agricultural 
extension, or county agent work, and through a vastly in- 
creased issue of publications dealing with the subjects in ques- 
tion. The amount of federal money appropriated for these 
purposes began with the annual sum of $480,000, increased 
the following year by J^6oo,ooo, and thereafter was to rise by 
annual increments of $500,000 until the annual appropriation 
beyond the stated $480,000, should be $4,100,000. 

The Smith-Lever Act followed pretty closely the tradition 
of the federal Department of Agriculture in its relationship to 
the state experiment stations. It left the preparation of a 
detailed program of activities and of a corresponding financial 
budget, to the officials of the state agricultural colleges, but 
made the acceptance of such program depend upon the mutual 
agreement of the Secretary of Agriculture and the state college 
officials. Annual reports were likewise called for of the dis- 
bursement of federal funds received by the state treasurers 
and the issuance of federal funds was to depend on the warrant 
to the Secretary of the Treasury of the Secretary of Agricul- 
ture. As a matter of course the participation of the states 
depended on the acceptance by the state legislatures of the 
terms of the act. But herein the Smith-Lever Act broke new 
ground: — the participation of the states in the federal bounty 
so temptingly held forth was to be conditioned on the appro- 
priation by the several states out of their treasuries or by 
local authorities or private parties within the states, of sums 
equal to the amount allotted to the states according to the act. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 483 

As a result of an increase in the work of the Department of 
Agriculture caused by the act and for the closer coordination 
of educational work that was already being done in that de- 
partment, the President created in 191 5 the States Relations 
Service to have charge of the activities called forth by the close 
interdependence of the federal Department of Agriculture and 
the officials connected with the agricultural work being done 
by the states. 

The Smith-Hughes Act. — In 191 7, the act relating to 
vocational education referred to above, namely, the Smith- 
Hughes Act, was passed by Congress. It provided for promo- 
tion of vocational education through cooperation with the 
states "in paying the salaries of teachers, supervisors, and direc- 
tors of agricultural subjects, and of teachers of industrial 
subjects, and in the preparation of teachers of agricultural, 
trade and industrial, and home economics subjects." The ac- 
tivities brought about through the act were to be under the 
control of a Federal Board for Vocational Education and this 
Board was empowered to conduct investigations in the field 
of vocational education and issue reports of such investiga- 
tions. An appropriation of $200,000 a year was made for 
carrying on the work of the Board. The act carried addi- 
tional appropriations for the support of the various objectives 
named above which were to begin at the figure of $1,700,000 
a year and to increase by annual increments until the figure 
of $7,000,000 a year was reached. Thereafter the same 
annual contribution was to continue as long as the act 
remained in force. Acceptance of the conditions of the act 
was dependent on favorable action of the state legislatures. 
Each state accepting was required to designate a state board 
to represent it in its dealings with the Federal Board for 
Vocational Education. Furthermore, each dollar of Smith- 
Hughes money that might go into any state had to be matched 
by a like contribution from the state treasury or from local 
or private sources. 

The Smith-Hughes Act an Important Innovation. — 
Externally the Smith-Hughes .-Xct closely resembled the Smith- 



484 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

Lever Act, which has been described as only mildly extending 
the legal prerogatives of the federal authorities. Essentially, 
however, the Smith-Hughes Act was a daring innovation in the 
field of federal participation in education. The federal govern- 
ment in its previous grants to the states for education had held 
a pretty loose rein. The general purposes for which the grants 
were made had been specified and some dependence of the 
state on federal authorities was provided for, but the rela- 
tionship between the state officials and the federal departments 
had been more a cooperative relationship, easily entered into 
on both sides, than it had been a legal one. In the Smith- 
Hughes Act, however, the purposes for which the money carried 
in the act was to be spent were very specifically defined. The 
education fostered under the act was to be vocational, not 
general, for persons over fourteen years of age, to be given in 
public schools or classes of less than college grade. The act 
further specified that at least one-third of the money devoted to 
industrial education was to be expended in "part-time" schools 
or classes, that one-half of all the time of the pupil should 
be spent on practical work, and gave the Federal Board for 
Vocational Education the right to determine whether state 
boards were living up to the spirit of the statute in respect 
to the qualifications of teachers employed, the programs of 
study, the provision of cooperative industrial experience, the 
equipment of shops, laboratories and school farms, and the 
organization of home projects in agriculture. The appropria- 
tion allotted to the Federal Board was adequate to allow the 
elaboration of a nation-wide system of inspection of the schools 
and classes operating under the act, and such an organization 
was immediately perfected. While the Federal Board was 
to operate through state boards, the exact definition of the 
purposes of the act and the limitation of the use of money 
to a very specific type of education, together with the large 
powers given to the Board to accept or reject plans submitted 
by the state boards and to establish a system of nation-wide 
inspection, gave the federal authority almost complete con- 
trol over the authorities representing the states. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 485 

Difficulties Encountered in Carrying out the Smith- 
Hughes Act. — The contemplated operation of the Smith- 
Hughes Act has been greatly interfered with by the war. The 
Federal Board has expended a great share of its energies in 
training soldiers for the wide range of vocational activities that 
were required for the efficient carrying on of military opera- 
tions. It also was designated by Congress as the agency 
through which was to be carried on the vocational rehabilita- 
tion of disabled soldiers and sailors. Nevertheless, the de- 
velopments which have taken place so far in the carrying out 
of the act have indicated that the first extensive federal ex- 
periment in schoolkeeping for the country at large has not 
been without its difficulties and deficiencies. 

The persons who were entrusted with carrying out the 
act were largely those who were originally interested in 
having it passed. They wrote the act to meet a specific pur- 
pose and they interpreted it to the same end. No ground for 
criticism lies here. But from that very fact arose misunder- 
standing and dissatisfaction. Many states wished to have 
Smith-Hughes money for the stimulation of agricultural, home 
economics, and industrial education, but they did not think 
that the standards for instruction in those subjects as inter- 
preted by the Federal Board were applicable to their own 
conditions. It was the very purpose of the act that federal 
money should not be expended for immature and slovenly forms 
of vocational instruction. Many of the states were on lower 
stages of evolution in the matter of vocational education 
than others, and had little place for those more highly devel- 
oped types of vocational education which were in the minds 
of those who wrote the law. However, this does not lessen the 
sense of injustice felt in many states and communities over 
what they consider the unfair and high-handed decisions of the 
Federal Board in withholding from them aid for the type of 
vocational education which at the present time and under 
present conditions represents the best they can do along that 
line. 

From one point of view the act may be regarded as too 



486 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

rigid to serve the needs of a country so large and so diversi- 
fied in its educational conditions as the United States. Such 
a stricture upon the act, however, is a criticism of it for what 
it is not and was never intended to be. Its terms are rigid, 
but they are so because it relates to a narrow specific pur- 
pose, namely, to aid vocational education that reaches a high 
degree of efficiency for immediate vocational ends. The Smith- 
Hughes Act may fail to achieve as wide a usefulness in stimu- 
lating vocational education as may be desirable, but at the 
same time its terms increase the probability that the money 
expended will be devoted to a well-defined and high-grade type 
of vocational activity, and not to book-instruction in agricul- 
ture or work with tools that is only remotely related to the 
needs of industry. 

The Smith-Hughes Act is — let it be emphasized — an experi- 
ment in federal participation in education within the states. 
It has its counterpart in the Federal Aid Road Act of 19 16 
which provided for the cooperation of the federal government 
with the highway departments of the respective states in the 
construction and improvement of rural post roads. This act 
provided aid over a five-year period that was to reach the 
sum of $25,000,000 by the fiscal year 192 1. By an amend- 
ment passed in 19 19, an additional appropriation was made 
available of $50,000,000 for 1919, $75,000,000 for 1920, and 
$75,000,000 for 1 92 1. In the case of road construction, tech- 
nical efficiency is required and definite specifications must 
safeguard the expenditure of funds. Such technical service 
and such safeguards are provided by the administrative or- 
ganization which the act brings into existence. In the Smith- 
Hughes Act somewhat the same sort of objective was aimed 
at, namely, one that needed to be technically defined and 
strictly pursued. At the present juncture in the development 
of the powers and activities of the federal government in rela- 
tion to the states there may well be a place for experimentation 
along the lines which the Smith-Hughes Act has opened up. 

Additional Activities of the Federal Government in 
Education. — At the present time the problems relating to the 



A NATIOXAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 487 

work of the national government in the field of education, 
are very much in the foreground, and there are influential 
interests working for an extension of national participation and 
for more definite organization and greater prestige for that 
branch of the federal service. In the discussions as to the 
part that should be played by the national government in edu- 
cation, we are sometimes unaware just how great is the edu- 
cational work of the United States government at the present 
time. The activities undertaken in connection with the Smith- 
Lever and the Smith-Hughes Acts have already been spoken 
of and they may be justly regarded as extensive and impor- 
tant, but they represent only a small part of the educational 
work of the government as it is carried on through a number 
of departments. 

The close relations that have existed between the federal 
Department of Agriculture and the various Land Grant Col- 
leges and State Experiment Stations, and the important work 
done by the Department of Agriculture for higher and secon- 
dary industrial, agricultural, and home economics education, 
have already been indicated under our previous discussion of 
the federal aid to the land grant colleges, but in addition one 
should have in mind the service which the Department of 
Agriculture has rendered through its publications on agricul- 
tural and rural education and its bulletins which have pro- 
vided materials of instruction for workers in those fields. Only 
mentioning the work of the War and Navy Departments in 
the administration of the agencies for training military and 
naval officers and other grades of military service, and the 
work of education carried on for the Indians by the Depart- 
ment of the Interior, we find that during the last generation, 
and particularly during the last ten years, a number of other 
departments have been carrying on under special commission 
of Congress, a wide range of work that is to be defined as edu- 
cational or closely related to the work of the schools. In the 
Naturalization Bureau of the Department of Labor, there 
has developed an important educational work in connection 
with the Americanization of immigrants. That Bureau works 



488 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

through the schools and the teachers of the United States and 
has prepared for their use at least two text-books to serve as 
a standard course of instruction for the preparation of the 
prospective citizen for the responsibilities of citizenship. The 
Bureau of Labor Statistics in collecting statistics on employ- 
ment of children and the educational needs of workers in in- 
dustry is doing work which is at once interdependent with the 
work of school attendance officials and with the planning of 
schools and courses of study. The Children's Bureau in the 
Department of Labor, created in 1912, "to investigate and 
report upon all matters pertaining to children and child life 
among all classes of the people," is doing a work which for its 
full fruition will involve the active and loyal cooperation of 
public education authorities. The Public Health Service, which 
has been maintained in the Treasury Department for over 
one hundred and twenty years, touches in certain phases of 
its widespread activity the province of the schools. The cur- 
rent appreciation of our deficiencies as a nation in the matter 
of health work and physical education is bound to enlarge the 
service which this branch of the federal government must carry 
out, if it will be done successfully, through the schools and 
educational officers. Last but not least in the catalogue of 
federal agencies concerned with education is the Federal Bu- 
reau of Education. 

Federal Bureau of Education. — We have had occasion to 
refer frequently to the work of this Bureau, but it is worth 
while to indicate the significant development in resources, 
personnel, and activities which has taken place in it during very 
recent years. The Report of the Commissioner of Education in 
1907 described the organization of the Bureau at that time. 
There were five divisions of the staff for administrative pur- 
poses, namely, Correspondence and Records, Statistical, Edi- 
torial, Library, and one to have charge of the education of the 
natives of Alaska. It will be seen from the enumeration of 
the divisions into which the work of the Bureau was divided 
that little or no provision was made for specialization of labors 
and little or none for field work and study. Since that time the 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 489 

Bureau of Education has from time to time been enabled by 
additional appropriations and careful management to add 
specialists in various fields of education and greatly to enlarge 
its influence. These specialists have been able to undertake 
field work— largely in the study of educational practices in 
the various states. They have been called upon frequently 
to make surveys of city and state systems of education and 
have been in large demand for discussion of their specialties 
before educational gatherings. They have also been able to 
organize field work in various localities, which they have 
coordinated and the results of which have been published by 
the Bureau. Not a small part of the conspicuous service which 
has been rendered by the Bureau has been through the publi- 
cations which it has issued. The Reports of the Commissioner 
have constituted a handbook of educational progress not only 
in the United States but in the world at large, and the timely 
studies made by Bureau specialists or by independent col- 
laborators employed by the Bureau on special topics of in- 
terest have stimulated educational improvement throughout 
the country as no other agency has been able to do during the 
same period. The Bureau is at present ' organized under the 
divisions named above and in addition those of City School 
Systems, Higher Education, Rural Education, Foreign Edu- 
cational Systems, Vocational Education, Home Education, 
School Hygiene, Civic Education, Community Organization, 
and United States School Garden. The work done by the 
specialists and the assistant specialists in the divisions of the 
Bureau has been largely assisted by a regularly organized 
service of special collaborators in the field. Close relation- 
ships have been built up with all the state departments of edu- 
cation and with other representatives of many significant phases 
of public education. Special collaboration is provided with 
higher education, rural education, city school administration, 
commercial education, visual instruction, library service, and 

* Since this was written, a reorganization of the work of the Bureau 
has taken place (iq2i), but without significant change in the extent or 
variety of the work done. 



490 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

kindergarten, and with educational research stations operating, 
in thirteen state universities. In 19 19, the researches of the 
Bureau staff and the enlisted collaborators found their way 
into the hands of thousands of students of education in the 
form of eighty-three bulletins, a wide range of leaflets and 
circulars, and two periodicals in newspaper form. 

Centralization during the World War. — All the economic 
and social forces that have been operating during the last two 
generations and more to make the United States a nation in 
reality and feeling as well as in name, began to function with 
multiplied effect under the stress of a war that called for con- 
certed and unstinted effort on the part of all its citizens. It 
will be unnecessary to more than recall the sweeping powers 
given to the federal government during that conflict. The 
Selective Draft, the National Food Administration, the Federal 
Railway Administration, the activities of the Treasury De- 
partment, the operations of the Secret Service, the application 
of the taxing power of the national government, — all these 
represent only a part of the activities of the central administra- 
tion that brought the power and the significance of the national 
government home to every individual. The stern necessities 
of war also brought about a spirit of self-examination that re- 
sulted in many discoveries about our national way of life that 
were alarming, or at the least, disquieting. 

What the War Revealed. — ' It was found that there ex- 
isted in the country large areas of alienism. The great num- 
bers of foreign immigrants which had come to our shores in 
the years following the Civil War and especially of more 
recent years had in all too many cases settled down in groups 
of their own national kind and had retained their native speech, 
traditions, and all too often, their national loyalties. The 
"melting pot," which we had so firmly believed in, had, after 
all, not done its work so well as we had thought. In many 
communities, it was revealed, there were flourishing schools 

^ For an excellent account of what the war revealed and of the educa- 
tional measures proposed for remedying deficiencies, see Keith and 
Bagley, The Nation and Its Schools. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 491 

in German and other languages, almost exclusively conducted 
under private auspices, while the English public schools lan- 
guished. Thousands of adults were compelled to seek what- 
ever information they might gain concerning the progress of 
the war and world and local policies and affairs through the 
columns of the foreign language press. Literally thousands of 
the young men picked up in the selective draft were unable 
to understand commands issued in English, let alone being 
able to appreciate the issues which brought the United States 
into the war. 

No less disquieting than this revelation of failure to assimi- 
late vast numbers of immigrants, was the revelation of prac- 
tical illiterac}^ among the native population. Of the men 
between twenty-one and thirty-one called in the first draft, it 
was found that about twenty-five per cent could not read the 
columns of a daily paper so as to get the meaning from them 
nor write a letter home. Still another cause for national 
stock-taking was the revelation that about thirty per cent of 
all the men called to the colors were physically unfit for un- 
limited military service. 

The Schools in Wartime. — The schools from the beginning 
of the war showed themselves able to perform important na- 
tional service and as loyally doing whatever came to their 
hands to do. It was soon recognized by the government that 
the shortest line to the people lay through the schools, and 
the national education authorities began to address themselves 
directly to the individual teachers in the school and class- 
rooms. Owing to the large opportunities for national service 
that lay with the schools and the administrative difficulties 
that interfered with the fullest and most efficient realization 
of those opportunities, the National Educational Association 
appointed a "Commission on the Emergency in Education and 
the Program for Readjustment during and after the War." 
This Commission, in an altogether unofficial capacity, but with 
the full cooperation of government authorities, coordinated 
the activities of the various federal departments that were 
operating through the schools. As a part of its work the 



492 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

Commission prepared an education bill which came before 
Congress as the Smith-Towner Bill in 1918. 

Terms of the Smith-Towner Bill. — The Smith-Towner 
Bill embodied principles that have been before Congress off 
and on for the last fifty years, and which in these pages con- 
stitute no novelty. It called for the more adequate recogni- 
tion of the nation's interest in education through the creation 
of a new executive department with a Secretary having a seat 
in the President's Cabinet. It further provided for a reorgani- 
zation of the varied and extensive educational activities of the 
federal government whereby immediately the work of the 
Bureau of Education, and at the President's discretion such 
other agencies as were dealing with educational problems, 
might be brought under the Department of Education. The 
appropriation for the new Department was placed at $500,000. 
The bill further provided for federal aid to the states amount- 
ing to $100,000,000 a year for the Americanization of immi- 
grants, the removal of illiteracy, physical education, the prep- 
aration of teachers, and the equalization of educational oppor- 
tunities among" the states. As in the case of the Smith-Lever 
and the Smith-Hughes Acts, the state or local authorities were 
required to match the federal appropriation dollar for dollar. 
The Smith-Towner Bill was favorably reported out of Com- 
mittee in both Houses in the Sixty-sixth Congress, but failed 
to come to a vote. It is at present before the appropriate 
Committees of the Sixty-seventh Congress and is now known 
as the Sterling-Towner Bill. 

The Questions at Issue in the (now) Sterling-Towner 
Bill. — The bill has created a great deal of discussion and has 
secured influential support in a wide variety of quarters. It 
has also evoked considerable criticism. It is of interest to 
note that the opposition to the bill has brought out again 
the historic "states rights" doctrine. Opposition to anything 
at this day on the basis of the principle of "states rights" 
seems to be somewhat of an anachronism, for the era that made 
of "states rights" an important principle of government has 
all but passed in the United States. We have become a na- 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 493 

tion and we think and act as a nation. There is, however, an 
extremely important principle that must be taken into consid- 
eration in connection with any extension of federal activity in 
the tield of education and it is a twentieth century counterpart 
of the old states rights theory. It is constantly necessary to 
ask what are the proper delimitations of the influence and pre- 
rogative of the federal as opposed to the state administration, 
not on the basis of abstract theory, but on the basis of practi- 
cal efficiency. What Can the federal government best do for 
educational efficiency in the country at large and what duties 
can best be performed by the states? 

There are few persons who seriously entertain the thought 
of a highly centralized federal administration of education. 
Our country is too large; the interests of the states are too 
diverse; the educational conditions among the separate states 
present too sharp contrast, for any system of uniform and 
standard administration of the schools from Washington. This 
fact is very definitely recognized in the Sterling-Towner Bill, 
which exhibits the unmistakable intention of those who wrote 
it to preserve the largest possible freedom to the state depart- 
ments of education in administering the money grants carried 
by the bill. From the standpoint of the centralization of edu- 
cational administration the Sterling-Towner Bill follows very 
closely the tradition that has been found to work with success 
in the case of the federal Departments of Agriculture, Com- 
merce, and Labor, in which departments a very slight legal 
foundation has been the basis for truly stupendous public 
service carried on in cooperation with the officials of the 
various states. Indeed, the new status of the Secretary of 
Education and the new prerogatives which he would enjoy in 
relation to the state departments of education would differ in 
no way from the relationships which the Commissioner of 
Education has entered into as the head of the Bureau of Edu- 
cation in the Department of the Interior. The more adequate 
resources placed under his control for investigations and re- 
ports and the greater importance that would be attached to the 
higher official rank in an exclusively official society, repre- 



494 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

sent the only significant innovations contained in the bill as 
related to the head of the federal educational service. From 
the standpoint of the more efficient administration of the 
many educational functions now being carried on by a half 
dozen boards, bureaus, and departments of the federal govern- 
ment it seems to be simply good business to eliminate duplica- 
tion of effort and confusion by bringing these activities to- 
gether under a single head. 

The limitations of space imposed upon this discussion will 
not allow of detailed consideration of the objectives to which 
the federal aid carried in the bill would be devoted. It re- 
mains to be said, however, that the United States is unmis- 
takably and incontrovertibly a nation, and that public edu- 
cation in our own country, as in all modern nations, is a na- 
tional interest of supreme importance. If education ever was 
the exclusive interest of the separate states, it is so no longer, 
for the spirit and the fact of nationality have obliterated state 
lines. States are only administrative divisions of a single na- 
tional government, and the distribution of prerogatives between 
state and federal governments depends upon what will bring 
about the most efficient results in social well-being and na- 
tional strength. 

Existing Inequalities of Educational Opportunity in 
Different States.' — We can no longer close our eyes to the fact 
of vast inequalities in the educational opportunities offered to 
boys and girls in the different states of the Union. Omitting 
Nevada from consideration, where it rises to the exceptional 
figure of almost $40,000, the amount of taxable wealth behind 
each pupil ranges from $19,377 i" California to $2561 in 
Mississippi. With the average for the entire country $9610, 
there are eight states where that amount is over $14,000 and 
eight states where it is less than $5000. The roll of the latter 
states is significant: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Georgia, 
South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Mississippi. 
In ten states of the Union the average number of days of school 

''Statistics of this section are taken from U. S. Bureau of Education, 
Bulletin, 1920, No. 11, Statistics of State School Systems, igiy-iS. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 495 

attended by each pupil enrolled was between one hundred and 
forty-one and one hundred and sixty-five days, while in four- 
teen others the average number was between sixty-one and 
one hundred. In three of these latter, the average annual 
attendance was 73.2, 73.6, and 78 days. Almost as many chil- 
dren were in attendance less than one hundred days a year as 
were in attendance more than one hundred and forty days a 
year. In six states of the Union fourteen per cent or more of 
the total public school enrollment was in the high school; 
while in five others less than four and one-half per cent was in 
the high school. In North Carolina, Arkansas, and South 
Carolina the figures were 2.8, 2.5 and 2.2 per cent respec- 
tively. The average for the country at large was 9.3 per cent, 
but there were twenty-eight states out of the forty-eight that 
did not have more than 10 per cent of all pupils enrolled in 
the high schools. The average salary paid to elementary and 
high school teachers was over $900 a year in five states and the 
District of Columbia, while in ten states, all of which were old 
southern states, it was less than $400. The average annual 
amount spent for the instruction of each pupil in school for 
the United States as a whole was in 1917-1918, $30.91. 
Twelve states spent more than $45 a year for each pupil, while 
ten spent less than $16, all of which again were southern 
states. Alabama, North Carolina, and Mississippi spent less 
than $10 a year on each pupil enrolled. And yet Virginia, 
Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina, 
and Mississippi in 19 12 paid more in support of the public 
schools for every $100 of taxable wealth than did Iowa, and 
within less than three cents a year of as much as did Rhode 
Island, North Dakota, New York, Kansas, and Nebraska. 

Such educational statistics constitute a matter of immediate 
and pressing national concern. The nation may not rest until 
substantial equality of educational opportunity has displaced 
the present destructive inequality. The truly marvelous fruit 
of federal aid in stimulating state educational effort in the 
immediate past, and the success with which other departments 
of the federal government have performed work of vast public 



496 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

benefit without dangerous incursion upon prerogatives prop- 
erly belonging to the states, lead one to believe that the en- 
largement of the part to be played by the federal government 
in public education would have only beneficent results. In 
the last analysis, however, the national problem is more than 
one of stimulating states to greater activity. It is a matter of 
equalizing through the national treasury if necessary, the 
educational opportunity of American boys and girls who will 
become American voters. It would seem that we have come 
to the day of that necessity. 

National Organizations and Conventions. — In any ac- 
count of the agencies that have operated in the development 
of a national educational consciousness, it is necessary to men- 
tion the significant results accomplished through a large 
number of unofficial organizations of nationwide scope. Fore- 
most among these is the National Educational Association 
with its multitude of subordinate divisions, chief among which 
may be mentioned the Department of Superintendence and the 
National Council of Education. In a sense the National Edu- 
cational Association is an unofficial national department of edu- 
cation. For over sixty years it has served to focus the atten- 
tion of educators from all over the United States upon school 
deficiencies and more advanced school practices, and its dis- 
cussions and printed reports have resulted in nationwide dis- 
semination of progressive educational ideas. The informal 
Conferences of Chief State Education Officers which have 
been held since 19 10 at the invitation of the United States 
Commissioner of Education have tended to bring the states 
together on such matters as the certification of teachers, legis- 
lative programs, and standardization of school grades. Na- 
tional gatherings of heads of colleges and universities and of 
Land-Grant Colleges and Experiment Stations, of high school 
principals, of persons interested in kindergartens, in Ameri- 
canization, and what not besides, — such national conferences 
and the confirmed habit of holding such conferences have 
been of great importance with us in the development of edu- 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 497 

cation as a truly national concern. The topic is deserving of 
much fuller treatment than it can receive in this connection. 



State Educational Administration 

The Increase in the Administrative Activities of State 
Governments. — The extensive changes which have taken place 
in the economic and social life of the United States are re- 
flected no less in the kind and amount of government by 
states than in the vast growth of the governmental activities 
of the federal government. The last generation has seen the 
multiplication of state officials and the erection of social con- 
trols on the part of state governments that the generation 
preceding knew nothing about. If one but names the follow- 
ing officials and boards he has the key to a list of new state 
functions or of functions that have within twenty or thirty 
years taken on new life: the insurance commissioner, the in- 
dustrial commission, the factory inspector, the highway com- 
missioner, the board of health, the bureau of charities and cor- 
rection, the public service commission, the superintendent of 
state police. Under the jurisdiction of these officers have come 
all sorts of important matters that formerly were cared for by 
local authorities, which is to say, generally not cared for at all. 
The new labors undertaken by the state governments for the 
people in the way of better health conditions, financial protec- 
tion, better labor conditions, the improvement of highways, a 
better administration of the agencies for charities and correc- 
tion, and superior forms of education, in themselves consti- 
tute an evolution that amounts to a revolution. To take one of 
these fields of public administration named above, namely, that 
of labor, the state is not only passing laws in response to the 
new conditions and the new needs of labor under the factory 
system, but it is establishing administrative machinery for 
the carrying out of those laws. Dangerous machinery, health 
conditions in the factories, the decency and morality of the 



498 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

factory, protection against fire risks, excessive hours of labor 
for women and children, and sweatshops, are topics regarding 
which the lawmaker has set up standards and for the observ- 
ance of which he has established a state labor service. Com- 
pensation for workers injured in the mills and factories and 
mines has been provided and boards have been established for 
the carrying out of the compensation acts. State authorities 
have been created to mediate in the case of disputes between 
workmen and employers. To take up the other phases of the 
new government in the states is hardly necessary, for a com- 
plete catalogue of officials and functions would only make 
more convincing the general principle which has already been 
sufficiently illustrated. 

State Educational Officers.— The expansion of state gov- 
ernment in all lines has its correlate in the growth in personnel 
and importance of the state departments of education. Earlier 
pages have described the relatively unimportant part played 
by the state school officers in the total educational effort of the 
states during the generation following the Civil War (see 
p. 436ff.), but even by 1890 we can discover a tendency for the 
state governments to broaden their educational prerogatives 
at the expense of those of the local authorities. What was 
the exception in this respect in 1890 has become the common- 
place of today, and in many of the most advanced states the 
local communities have been drawn into close financial inter- 
dependence with the state as a whole, while the state has 
come to exercise large authority over local school officers 
through its system of inspection. 

At the present time it is the all but universal practice for 
the state authorities to outline the minimum requirements of 
the course of study in elementary and high schools. This 
organization of material is carried out in detail for the grades, 
and in many states examinations conducted by state authori- 
ties or in cooperation with them are given at the end of the 
eighth grade work, and certificates possessing standard value 
are presented to the students who have successfully stood 
the test. Hand in hand with the standardization of the ele- 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 499 

mentary curriculum has proceeded the standardization of high 
schools. High schools of various grades are recognized by the 
state departments of education, usually after inspection by a 
state official, and graduates of these schools are properly 
ticketed with respect to their entrance to normal schools, col- 
leges, or universities in the state. In most of the states, a list 
of text-books that may be used in the elementary and high 
schools is prepared by state authorities. In many cases the 
state authority exercises close control of this matter, while in 
others where such power is assumed at all, large lists of avail- 
able books are prepared and local authorities are given con- 
siderable latitude in their choice of the books to be used. In a 
few states, the state has gone into the business of purchasing all 
books for use in the schools, while two states are actually in 
the business of text-book publication. 

The matter of the certification of elementary teachers con- 
tinues to be largely in the hands of county superintendents, 
although in many states the lists of questions to be used in 
the counties are prepared in the state office. In respect to the 
certification of high school teachers, many states have pre- 
scribed specific conditions of academic preparation or experi- 
ence, and colleges and universities have been listed by the state 
authorities as to the eligibility of their graduates, on completion 
of special education studies, to receive the state high school 
teachers' certificate. 

Indeed the state authorities have entered so extensively into 
the work carried on in the schools that an account of their par- 
ticipation would amount almost to a survey of all phases of 
education. There remain wide differences among the states in 
respect to the activity of the state departments of education, 
some of the least progressive states remaining at about the 
point which the most progressive had reached in the eighties 
of the last century. The activities of the state departments 
e.xercising the largest prerogative may perhaps best be shown 
by a description of the staffs of one or two selected state de- 
partments. 

In Massachusetts, for example, the staff is organized as 



500 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 17S9 

follows: ^ commissioner of education, two deputy commis- 
sioners, business agent, director of Americanization, assistant 
director of Americanization, agent in charge of teacher-train- 
ing division, agent in charge of teacher-training courses for 
agricultural schools, agent in charge of training courses for 
industrial teachers, administrative agent, agent in charge of 
teacher training for day and evening household art schools, 
assistant in the same work, associate in teacher training divi- 
sion, agent in charge of agricultural schools, supervision of day 
and evening schools for boys and men, agent for high schools, 
agent for elementary schools, agent for research and statistics, 
agent in charge of registration of teachers, agent in charge of 
day and evening schools for girls and women, assistant in 
evening practical arts schools, associate in education, director 
of university extension, agent in charge of extension classes 
in industrial subjects, agent in charge of correspondence in- 
struction, editor and supervisor of extension instruction, thir- 
teen normal instructors in the extension division, and seventy- 
three clerks and stenographers. The salary budget for this 
staff in 1919 was $173,410. 

The reorganization of the state department of education in 
Alabama which took place in 19 19 gave that state a progres- 
sive form of state administration. The staff of the department 
in 1920 consisted of a state superintendent of education, an 
assistant superintendent, who is director of teacher training, 
a certification and placement secretary with an assistant, a 
reading-circle secretary, a teacher training supervisor for ne- 
gro schools, a statistician, two supervisors of rural schools, a 
supervisor of construction, an architectural draftsman, a spe- 
cialist in primary education, a specialist in elementary educa- 
tion, a supervisor of secondary education, with an assistant, a 
director of physical and health education, a director of voca- 
tional education, a supervisor of agriculture, a supervisor of 
trades and industry, a supervisor of home education, a secre- 

^ The facts herewith given concerning the organization of state de- 
partments of education are taken from U. S. Bureau of Education, 
Bulletin, 1920, No. 46, Organization of State Department of Education. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 501 

tary for the education of exceptional children, besides clerks, 
bookkeepers and stenographers. The salary budget for the 
staff in 1919 was $83,010, 

The State of New York continues to represent, as it has 
historically done, the most extreme development of centralized 
state control of education. In 1904 the dual administration 
of education which had persisted throughout the nineteenth 
century was done away with. The functions of the State Super- 
intendent of Public Instruction, who had up to then been 
concerned only with matters relating to the elementary schools, 
and the functions of the Board of Regents of the University 
of the State of New York, which had been limited to the 
supervision and control of secondary and higher education, 
were at that time merged under the authority of the Board of 
Regents. The Board of Regents was entrusted with the elec- 
tion of an executive officer, to be known as the Commissioner 
of Education. By this consolidation the elementary schools 
are now united with secondary and higher institutions in the 
University of the State of New York. The powers exercised 
by the Commissioner of Education acting under the authority 
of the Board of Regents touch every aspect of the work of 
public education in the state. Under his control rest the ex- 
aminations for licenses in the professions, the standardization 
of secondary schools, the administration of teacher training 
schools and colleges, the incorporation of educational institu- 
tions, the conduct of university extension, the care of the 
State Library, the visitation of schools, the administration 
of vocational education, and the education of illiterate and 
non-English speaking persons. The Department of Education 
is housed in the Education Building at Albany. It is organ- 
ized under an elaborate system of assistant commissioners, 
directors, chiefs of division, inspectors, specialists, experts, and 
examiners with a small army of assistants, librarians, clerks, 
and stenographers. The educational life of the entire state 
centers in Albany and the members of the staff of the Com- 
missioner keep in close and constant touch with teachers and 
local authorities in every community of the state. The budget 



502 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

for salaries of the departmental staff, including the wages 
paid in maintenance of the Education Building, in 1919 was 
almost $823,000. 

There are, however, many states which have expanded the 
operations and the staff of the state department of education 
little beyond the conditions that obtained as the general rule in 
1890 among all the states. In twenty-two states the salary 
budget for the state educational service was (1919) less than 
$40,000 a year; in twelve states less than $30,000 and in 
three states less than $20,000. Most of the states have pro- 
vided additional supervisory officers for vocational education 
upon accepting the conditions of the Smith-Hughes Act. In 
Arizona, for example, where there are a state director of voca- 
tional education and three supervisors of that work, the rest 
of the staff of the state department of education is comprised 
in a state superintendent of public instruction, a deputy state 
superintendent, three stenographers, and three members of the 
board of examiners at a salary of $300 a. year each. In a num- 
ber of southern states the salaries of rural school agents, spe- 
cial supervisors of negro schools, and high school inspectors 
are paid by the General Education Board while the persons so 
paid are official representatives of the state departments of 
education. In general it may be said that the states in which 
the largest urban development has taken place and in which the 
population and wealth are greater, have developed their state 
administrative systems to the higher levels of efficiency. Im- 
proved state administration in all states would, however, work 
to the advantage of the school service. 

State Financial Aid. — The extension of state control has 
for the most part taken place as a cooperative arrangement 
freely entered into by the local authorities. In certain par- 
ticulars of administration, to be sure, the states have asserted 
the paramount interest of the state over local authorities, as in 
the extending of the minimum term of school, the progressive 
strengthening of school attendance measures, the raising of 
standards of schools and of the requirements for teachers cer- 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 503 

tificates, and the imposition of regulations regarding sanita- 
tion and safety. On the other hand, the state has largely 
shortened its leading-strings over the local authorities as it 
has loosened its purse strings. For example, the states have 
not commanded local authorities to maintain high schools of 
standard grade, but they have encouraged them to do so by 
offering a state appropriation for each standard grade high 
school established. They have not compelled the closing up of 
small district schools, but they have placed a financial premium 
upon consolidation and have volunteered to pay part of the 
expense of the transportation of pupils. They have not de- 
manded of the rural high schools that they develop depart- 
ments of agriculture, industrial arts, and home economics, but 
they have made it financially possible or easier for such de- 
partments to be organized. States are at present paying, on 
this cooperative basis, for a wide variety of educational ac- 
tivities that rise beyond the minimum requirements placed 
upon all communities by the laws of the state. 

There has been a hotable change in the last generation of 
the method of distributing state school funds. The almost 
universal rule in the eighties, as we have seen, was the distri- 
bution of such funds on the per capita or school population 
basis. This method is still followed too extensively, but other 
methods are gradually displacing it. The payment of special 
subsidies for specific educational improvement, such as the 
maintenance of a teacher training class in a high school, the 
teaching of home economics, the consolidation of a number of 
weak schools, or the maintenance of a "standard" rural school, 
has already been mentioned as an approved way of applying 
state funds. This method results in the stimulation of local 
authorities to greater efforts. A second change is from pay- 
ment on the basis of school or general population to payment 
on an attendance basis, which stimulates better observance of 
the compulsory attendance measures. A third change is from 
the population basis to a payment-by-teacher basis, which gives 
greater advantages to the smaller and weaker districts. Yet 



504 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

a fourth change is in the direction of helping out districts with 
a state contribution to their school budget when a specified 
tax rate fails to bring in a minimum amount of money. 

Equalizing Educational Opportunities within the 
State. — The last named method of disbursing state aid has as 
yet had but slight development, but it represents a principle 
that is applicable to every area of school administration, actual 
or possible, from the United States as a whole down to the ul- 
timate local authority. The desirability of equalizing the edu- 
cational opportunity offered by the various states has already 
been discussed (see p. 494f.). The same principle applies with 
equal force to counties and districts within each state and 
to smaller units within counties and townships. In almost 
every state there are counties in which a minimal tax rate will 
support the most liberal and efficient type of public education, 
while in others a maximal tax rate will not produce enough 
returns to support the minimum school requirements laid down 
by the legislature of the state. In many of the states the state 
steps in and aids counties or districts that are unable, even 
after levying a prescribed tax rate, to meet the requirements of 
the law; but the principle needs to be applied before such an 
extremity is reached. Common justice and the welfare of all 
demand that some more equitable way be found of applying the 
whole wealth of the whole state to the education of all its 
children and youth. The distribution of state aid to local 
authorities on the basis of the taxable wealth of those areas, 
combined with prescriptions of minimal educational standards, 
must be developed more highly than hitherto if the burdens and 
the opportunities of education are to be made more nearly 
equal over states at large. 

The State Board of Education and the Chief State 
Educational Officer.^ — In 1920 there were forty-two states 
that had state boards with functions relating to the public 
schools, while of the other six states, four had boards of edu- 

*The facts used in this section are taken largely from the Bureau of 
Education, Bulletin 1915, No. 5, Organization of State Department of 
Education, and Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1920, No. 46, same title. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 505 

cation with restricted functions. In only eight states has the 
practice survived which was once so common, namely, the 
designation of certain state officials to serve ex officio as the 
state board of education. A board so constituted ceases to be 
serviceable when the educational interests of the state increase 
in number and magnitude. Accordingly, as the states have 
taken up seriously their responsibility for providing adequate 
state systems of education, they have tended to discard that 
type of board. The educational activity of the present state 
board of education involves much more than the care of state 
school funds and the per capita distribution of the income 
from the same and of the returns of state taxation to local 
authorities. It involves active planning with regard to educa- 
tional programs and policies for the state at large at a time 
when the range of the state's activities includes education 
of every grade from the university to the kindergarten, and 
education of every kind, from the preparation of high school 
teachers to the training of mental defectives, or from the pro- 
fessional schools of the university to the vocational schools of 
industrial arts and agriculture. The best educational thought 
at the present day regards the state board of education as a 
body concerned with the development of the educational policy 
of the state, — a board of educational strategy. As the present 
range of educational activities carried on by the states touches 
the life of business, the life of the home, the farm, and the 
factory at so many points, it seems desirable that the compo- 
sition of the state board should reflect in its membership a wide 
variety of public interests. It seems to be the present tendency 
to place the appointment of a board of from about five to nine 
members in the hands of the governor, with the expectation 
that he will appoint men and women of intelligence and public 
interest, who are conversant with the practical conditions of 
existence and who are, or will become, familiar with educational 
problems. 

In many states the appointed members constitute only a part 
of the whole board. The governor and the state superintendent 
of schools, where that officer is retained, are frequently ex 



5o6 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

officio members, while certain ex officio educational members, 
such as the president of the state university, are designated. 
As shown by the restrictions placed on the governor's power 
of appointment there seems to be no way of deciding whether 
we are moving in the direction of boards composed mainly of 
school men or in the direction of lay boards. In four states 
which have recently legislated on the subject, the persons 
appointed to the board may not be subject to the jurisdiction 
of the board, or in other words, may not be public school offi- 
cials. In nine states, on the other hand, recent legislation has 
compelled the governor to appoint all or a part of the board 
from among persons actively engaged in education. In ten 
states the latest laws have left the governor without restrictions 
in his exercise of the appointing power. But in any event the 
principle seems to be clearly established that the board should 
be a small, fairly continuous, non-political, and unsalaried body 
composed of men or of men and women competent to advise 
the chief educational officer and the legislature on state policies 
of education. 

The most striking anomaly in current practices of state 
educational administration is the persistence of the purely po- 
litical office of state superintendent of public education. As 
has been pointed out in earlier pages of this work, the office 
came into existence at a time when its duties were largely 
financial, when the technique of public education was ex- 
tremely simple, and when the use of experts in the public 
service was practically unknown. In many of the states the 
office of state superintendent is provided for in the state con- 
stitution, which makes change to a larger conception of the 
office and a better mode of selecting its incumbent, extremely 
difficult. At the present time (1920), thirty-four states con- 
tinue to elect the head of the state school service, — most of 
them at ordinary elections for state officers on the regular 
party ticket. As a result the choice of state superintendent is 
limited by a large number of factors that are accidental as 
far as the real issue is concerned. The person chosen must 
be a member of the successful political party and he must 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 507 

appeal to the powers in control of the party for his nomina- 
tion. He must be willing to undertake his share of the cam- 
paign labors. His selection is limited to the state of which 
he is a voting citizen and even there it must be practically 
subject to conditions of professional seniority. The salary, 
being established by law and usually having been established 
long ago, is inflexible and usually low. In fourteen states in 
which the state superintendent is elected by the people his 
salary is $3000 or less (1920). The result of this condition is 
that many city superintendents in the state and even some 
members of the state department staff are paid larger salaries 
than the head of the system. In Nebraska, for example, 
where the state superintendent is paid $2000 a year, the direc- 
tor of vocational education and the three supervisors of voca- 
tional education are paid annual salaries of ii>3ooo. Such cases 
are not infrequent among the state departments. On ac- 
count of the low salary attached to the office, its acceptance 
by the best educators of the state, even when the discomforts 
of politics are counted out, is, to say the least, improbable. 
As a result the office of educational leadership may easily fall 
to a person of considerably less ability than it should normally 
attract. Another disadvantage connected with the political 
choice of state superintendent is found in the short term of 
office which so frequently goes along with that mode of choice. 
In an era when "instruments of precision" are being so ex- 
tensively applied in the business of state administration, it 
is difficult to understand why the bungling and uncertain 
method of selecting the state superintendent of schools on a 
political party ticket should continue to be the general rule in 
the commonwealths of the United States. 

The more modern practice and the one which is gaining 
ground along with the new type of state board is to leave the 
selection of the chief educational officer of the state to the 
governor or to the state board of education. Since 191 5, 
four states in which the chief school officer had been appointed 
by the governor, have changed to the system of appointment 
by the state board, while in one state, Massachusetts, a change 



5o8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

in the duties of the state board has led to a change from ap- 
pointment by the board to appointment by the governor. In 
Iowa, to the contrary, the same official formerly appointed by 
the governor is at present elected by the people. There is a 
strong tendency to change the name of an appointed head 
from that of state superintendent of education to commissioner 
of education. In all the more efficient organizations of state 
departments of education the chief school officer, whether ap- 
pointed by the board or the governor or elected by the people, 
is regarded as the professional expert and executive of the 
board. Where the commissioner is chosen by the board or by 
the governor, there is much better chance that the right man 
for the place will be found, especially when the law gives the 
appointing power the right to choose that officer from any 
state in the Union. The intention of securing expert service, 
of which such a mode of selection is evidence, has been uni- 
formly backed up by substantial salary inducements. The 
ideal arrangement, according to the best educational thought 
of the present time, is to give to a broadly representative and 
competent state board the right to choose its professional ex- 
pert and executive secretary from the country at large and to 
fix his salary at the figure that will secure the services of the 
best man available. 

State Colleges and Universities. — The support which the 
various states have given to the state universities and state 
colleges has been tremendously increased during the last thirty 
years. Up to about 1890 the state universities in general had 
experienced little development, the main exception being in the 
cases of Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The same statement 
applied to the Land Grant Colleges in the various states. In 
short, the state legislatures in 1890 had not yet acquired the 
habit of generosity to state educational institutions. In 1889- 
1890, the total appropriations of state and municipal authori- 
ties to all universities and colleges amounted to $1,383,000, 
and in 1890-1891, to $2,118,000.^ In 1916-1917, the states 
appropriated to the agricultural and mechanical colleges alone, 

'See Report U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1894-1S95, Vol. I. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 509 

for instruction and administration the sum of $21,379,900, 
and for their agricultural experiment stations and for extension 
work the additional sum of $3,900,000. The amount given to 
the same institutions for new buildings and equipment came to 
$14,400,000 more/ For 1917-1918, the sum given to the 
University of California by the Legislature was $2,200,000. 
In Illinois, a statewide tax of one mill provided the University 
with an income of over $2,000,000. By a similar provision of 
a state tax, the University of Michigan received $1,190,000 
and the Michigan Agricultural College, $560,000. The total 
appropriations of all the states for the year ending 'June 30, 
19 1 8, to their state universities and colleges, amounted to 
$33>539,748.- 

LocAL Education Authorities 

The Country Life Movement and Rural Education. — 
In estimating the important economic and social changes that 
have come about during the last thirty years, one should not 
overlook the new vitality that has come into rural life. Up 
to 1890, and considerably after that time, the farmer and his 
family had hardly felt the great prosperity which the country 
as a whole was enjoying. The conditions under which they 
existed were taken much as a matter of course. It was to be 
expected that the farmer and his family should work labo- 
riously for small returns, that they should be without con- 
veniences and the recreations of city or town life, and that the 
rural school should remain inefficient, cheap, and ugly. The 
rising discontent of the farmer over the unfavorable condi- 
tions of farm life, was manifested in the Populist movement of 
the early nineties, and the beginnings of legislation designed 
tc help the farmers resulted from their capture of the legis- 
latures and governments of a number of states. A steady rise 
in the price of agricultural commodities that began in the 
late nineties improved the farmer's financial condition and his 

"See Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1Q18, No. 41. 
* Computed from tables given in Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1918, 
No. 51. 



510 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

ability to pay for the refinements of life that he came more 
and more to demand for himself and his family. 

Although it was not the beginning of the movement for 
better conditions of rural life, the Report in 191 1 of the 
Federal Commission on Country Life, which had been ap- 
pointed by President Roosevelt in 1908, had great influence 
in stimulating all sorts of activities that centered around the 
conception of making country life more profitable and humanly 
more satisfying. Better farming, more advantageous market- 
ing, improved roads, the introduction of labor-saving ma- 
chinery upon the farm and in the farm home, enriched com- 
munity life, and better schools are only some of the phases 
of the movement. The little single teacher school, which was 
universal before 1890, has given way in many localities to 
an architecturally attractive consolidated elementary and high 
school, which can employ well-trained teachers, provide super- 
vision, offer special courses related to the needs of rural life, 
and serve as the recreational center for an entire neighborhood. 
The conditions with respect to rural education are not yet 
satisfactory — in many sections they continue to be deplorable; 
but the Country Life Movement daily acquires momentum. 
Some of the means which have been employed in the improve- 
ment of rural schools are discussed in the preceding and in 
the following pages, and there can be no doubt that such 
means will continue to be employed more widely and more 
successfully until the educational opportunities of the country 
boy and girl are as good as those of his city cousin. 

Reorganization of Local Education Authorities. — In the 
United States, cities and incorporated towns are generally set 
off as separate units of local school administration and support. 
The main exceptions to this rule occur in the New England 
states, where it not infrequently happens that a town (town- 
ship) is composed of both city and rural areas administered 
as a unit, and in the South, where in some cases the aggrega- 
tions of population are included in the county at large for 
purposes of school management and maintenance. As city 
school administration will be considered briefly in a separate 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 511 

connection, the present discussion applies only to the smaller 
towns and villages and the open country. 

Even if the last generation has seen a great development in 
state departments of education, it must not be taken for 
granted that this increase in the activity of central authorities 
has been accompanied by a decrease in the vitality of local 
authorities. Indeed, quite the opposite is the truth. The last 
thirty years have seen great development of the powers that 
have been placed in their hands. If the state's educational 
activities have increased, that increase has been paralleled by 
the new responsibilities placed upon reconstituted local boards 
of education. 

One of the outstanding problems in American education to- 
day is just this one of the proper constitution of a local au- 
thority and much progress has been made in efforts to solve it. 
Historical factors have determined to a considerable extent 
the typical developments in the local organization of educa- 
tional machinery. In New England, where the town is much 
the most important local civil institution and where, generally 
speaking, the population and the resources of the town make it 
a desirable local unit, local school administration and support 
have been organized on the basis of the town. In the South, 
where the county has been historically the basis of local admin- 
istration, that unit has been followed and a system of Jocal 
education control has been elaborated within the county-area. 
In the remaining states of the Union no single area has had 
a clear monopoly in the matter of local government and in 
these states we find the county, the township, and the school 
district dividing among themselves those school functions that 
are assigned to local officials. 

The Increasing Inadequacy of the District System. — 
We have seen how the conditions of pioneer life made the 
independent school districts the most efficient means of sup- 
plying some sort of school to the greatest number of children. 
So long as the country was only sparsely settled there was no 
need for an organization for school purposes except where there 
were children to be educated. With the settlement of the 



512 NATIONALISIM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

intermediate territory between settlements, school districts and 
single schoolhouses were multiplied to meet the increased 
demand. As long as standards of education were low and only 
the minimal elements of an education were provided, the dis- 
trict system served the purpose; but as soon as active efforts 
began to be made to improve the quality of instruction, to 
extend its upward range, and to introduce vocational special- 
ties, the inadequacy of the district plan of organization be- 
came evident. The state began to extend its control over the 
district school officers by means of minimum requirements in 
the matter of school studies, length of term, and compulsory 
attendance. The interposition of county or town examining 
authorities took away still more of the one time absolute power 
of the district trustees. But even with those changes, partly 
consummated before 1890, the school district has continued to 
play a role for which it has become progressively more unfitted. 
Ordinarily the district has been too small in numbers and too 
poor to provide graded schools, high schools, vocational in- 
struction, and professional supervision. It has been seen that 
larger numbers of pupils must be concentrated in one school 
and a larger amount of money applied in that school to make 
it serve the new standards of education. An additional reason 
for extending the area of school support has been found in the 
extreme inequalities which the districts exhibited. Purely 
accidental considerations, such as the presence in a district of 
an oil refinery, a railroad, a salt mine, or a great manufactur- 
ing establishment, enabled the fortunate district on a small 
tax levy to provide its children with all the refinements of 
modern instruction, while adjoining districts, with the maxi- 
mum tax levy allowed by the law, could offer only the educa- 
tional minima. As a result of the revealed inadequacy of the 
pioneer instrumentality of school administration and support, 
many of the states in which the district system was once 
universal have built up strong local authorities centering in 
the township, town, or county. 

The movement away from the district system began in the 
section of the country where it had originated, and we have 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 513 

already discussed some of the early progress which the New 
England states had made toward the strengthening of town 
control of education before 1890. Massachusetts finally got 
rid of the school district in 1882, and New Hampshire in 1885. 
The other New England states have eliminated school district 
control since the 'nineties, some of them very recently. Even 
before the legal abolition of this form of control, legislative 
steps were taken to induce districts of their own accord to pool 
their educational resources and to combine for better schools. 
Permissive legislation provided for voluntary consolidation of 
districts under town control. State bounties were offered for 
certain educational improvements that implied the town or- 
ganization. But it was only with the passage of mandatory 
laws that the school district disappeared as a form of local 
school administration in New England. 

The school district remains as an influential educational 
agency mainly in the states west of the Mississippi, where 
sparse population is more common, but even in that section 
the system is generally conceded to have long outlived its use- 
fulness. It continues to be the enemy of better equalization 
of school facilities and of the provision of better schools. 
Local pride and jealousy insist on holding on to their poor 
own mstead of combining with other communities for the 
provision of something better, held and enjoyed in common. 
Where several schools could with economy and a large net 
educational gain be consolidated, district control frequently 
prevents such change. The chances for school consolidation, 
for high schools, for professional supervision, are greatly im- 
proved where the districts voluntarily or under the compulsion 
of state law are combined into larger areas of administration 
and support. Even where the district remains as the typical 
local educational unit, state laws permitting consolidation of 
schools, union high school districts, unions of districts for 
supervisory purposes, usually with state aid offered for such 
school improvements, are gradually multiplying instances of 
district cooperation or consolidation and paving the way for a 
general reorganization of the local authorities. The district 



514 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

is generally recognized as a survival from pioneer conditions 
which will be discarded as its inadequacies in providing superior 
educational facilities are more clearly exhibited and in time 
become unendurable. 

Town and Township Education Authorities. — In the 
more thickly populated states of the East and the Middle 
West, the town, or township, has been found generally useful 
as the local basis of better school administration. The excep- 
tion must be noted, however, that some of the middle western 
states have recently turned to the county unit as being still 
more serviceable. In the New England states particularly, 
the town school committee has developed into a vital and in- 
fluential local authority. The states have exerted pressure 
upon the richer and more populous towns to provide profes- 
sional supervision and secondary and special schools, and 
they have extended state aid to the weaker towns for the at- 
tainment of the same ends. Bonuses placed on consolidation, 
with state aid for the cost of transportation of pupils, aid for 
weaker towns in paying the salaries of school superintendents, 
compulsory payment by towns where no high school exists 
of high school tuition for pupils of the town, special state con- 
tributions for high schools and for vocational education, unions 
of towns for school purposes,- — these are some of the means 
whereby the state authorities are enabled to stimulate and to 
help out local effort. 

Powers and Duties of the Town School Committee. — 
The town school authorities in the New England states con- 
tinue to enjoy relatively extensive powers. In Massachusetts, 
for example, where the town school committee is elected at the 
annual town meeting, the duties and powers of the school com- 
mittee are in part as follows: to have charge of all public 
schools; make regulations governing evening schools, select and 
contract with teachers; examine teachers or accept in lieu of 
such examination diplomas of graduates of the state normal 
schools; prescribe books and courses of study and exercises for 
the public schools; purchase text-books and supplies and lend 
same tree of charge to pupils; employ a superintendent of 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 515 

schools; return records to state school commissioner; publish 
annual reports of the public schools; and take a detailed cen- 
sus of all children between five and twenty-one years of age, 
which is to be returned to the state school commissioner. 

Powers and Duties of the Township School Board in 
Pennsylvania. — In the State of Pennsylvania the township 
has long been the unit of school support and management. 
In that state four classes of school boards are recognized, the 
fourth of which is the ordinary form of township organization 
in rural areas. This type of board consists of five members 
elected for six-year terms. The powers given to boards of 
school directors as here enumerated in part, apply to all classes 
of board: to maintain elementary public schools; maintain 
at their discretion as part of the public school system, high 
schools, manual training schools, evening schools, kindergar- 
tens, libraries, museums, reading rooms, gymnasiums, play- 
grounds, schools for blind, deaf and dumb, and mentally de- 
ficient, truant schools, parental schools, schools for adults, and 
public lectures; levy and collect taxes for maintaining such 
schools or departments; fix length of school term; adopt text- 
books; appoint or dismiss district superintendent, assistants, 
and teachers; adopt courses of study; fix salaries of super- 
visors and teachers. In all counties which employ a county 
superintendent, the school directors are directed to hold an 
annual convention for the discussion of school problems. A 
similar meeting is held for the election of a county super- 
intendent. 

These two states may be accepted as examples of the local 
administration of schools by town or township school officers. 
Outside of New England, where the town system is followed, 
the county is usually combined with the township as a local 
school unit. In such case the county is generally the basis 
of school supervision under the county superintendent, and in 
some instances the financial burdens are distributed between 
the two units. 

The County Unit of School Administration. — The 
county as a unit of local school administration and support 



5i6 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

is growing in favor and is pronounced by many educational 
leaders as being superior to any other. Its comparatively 
large size insures the equalization of school costs and of school 
opportunities over a considerable area. The same factor of 
area makes possible advantageous consolidations for school 
purposes which, especially in the states having the square con- 
gressional township, are sometimes impossible under the town- 
ship system. The number of schools and teachers makes it 
feasible to employ special supervision that will actually attain 
the purpose of professional superintendence. Where a county 
board of education with an efficient organization and extensive 
powers is provided, it is likely that the type of educational 
leadership so achieved will be more progressive and enlightened 
than that afforded by a much larger number of district school 
officers. The county system follows the general form of or- 
ganization of the city systems of school control that have on 
the whole given such good results. 

As has been said, the county unit has had its widest adop- 
tion in the southern states, where tradition and social con- 
ditions make it the logical type of local authority. The county 
board of education, however, in its present meaning is a very 
recent achievement. Even where the county boards existed 
before 1890, their activities were not extensive, and it is since 
that time that most of the southern states have either created 
county boards of education for the first time or vastly extended 
the powers and duties of such boards. In connection with a 
county board which is a real local education authority, purely 
local officers are retained to look after the school premises and 
in some cases to participate with the county board in the 
selection of the local teachers. In a number of states there 
remains a division of powers between the county boards of 
education and the district or township trustees. The present 
period is one of experimentation to find out just what powers 
should be transferred to the county board and which kept in 
the hands of the district trustees in the interest of the largest 
efficiency. Where the division of powers is rather equal, the 
system is termed the semi-county plan. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 517 

The county has been adopted as the educational unit in a 
number of states outside of the South. In 191 7 New Mexico 
became the nineteenth state organized wholly or in part on 
the county system. Since then Arkansas (19 19), Delaware 
(1919), Kentucky (1920) and Missouri (1921) have either 
adopted for the first time or greatly strengthened their county 
boards of education, while Montana, Iowa, and Oregon have 
made significant beginnings in the direction of the county 
unit (1919). 

The Powers and Duties of the County Board in Mary- 
land. — A good example of the powers vested in a county board 
of education having extensive powers is shown in the case of 
Maryland. In that state since 19 14 the county boards have 
been given a wide range of functions, the most important of 
which are the following: To elect a person to serve as secre- 
tary and treasurer of the board and as county superintendent 
of schools; hold the title to all public school property as a 
corporate body; have general supervision of all schools in 
their respective counties; build, repair, and furnish school- 
houses; purchase and distribute text-books; appoint assistant 
teachers; consolidate schools; arrange and pay for the trans- 
portation of pupils; apportion state school moneys; levy a 
county tax for school purposes; appoint a committee to divide 
the county into suitable school districts; make annual reports; 
appoint all high school principals; reject or confirm appoint- 
ments of principal teachers; appoint school district trustees; 
select students for free scholarships; buy and sell school sites; 
and appoint grade supervisors and supervisors of colored 
schools. 

Serving the county board in the capacity of professional 
advisor and executive secretary is a county superintendent of 
schools. The law provides for additions to the supervisory 
staff of assistants and grade supervisors by the board's ap- 
pointment. 

The county board, as has been mentioned in the list of the 
board's powers, appoints three persons to serve as school 
trustees for each district. These district school trustees have 



Si8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

the power to choose the principal teacher of the local schools, 
subject to the approval of the county board. They also have 
charge of the local school plant, supervising repairs and being 
responsible for the cleanliness and sanitary condition of the 
premises. In case a trustee proves inefficient, he can be re- 
moved by the county board of school commissioners. 

Examples of county organization where the county board 
has less power than in the case of Maryland, but where many 
of the advantages of the county system are attained, are to 
be found in the systems followed in Ohio and California. The 
many variations that are being tried out in various states upon 
the general conception of the county unit are instructive re- 
garding the active search among American educators and law- 
makers for a more vital and a more efficient system of local 
school control, supervision, and support.^ 

Local School Supervision ^ 

Supervision under the Town System. — While rural and 
village school supervision has undergone considerable change 
for the better in the last generation, that phase of education 
in the United States continues to be, outside of a few excep- 
tional sections, at a low stage of development. Perhaps the 
best conditions for any extensive section are to be found in 
the New England states. A Massachusetts law of 1888 al- 
lowed towns to unite for the purpose of employing a super- 
visory officer and granted state aid to the towns so combining 
and to the smaller towns that undertook independently to 
support a superintendent. Progress was made under this law 
and in 1902 the optional law was changed to a mandatory one. 
The state at present pays one-half the salaries of union dis- 
trict superintendents and prescribes the conditions of eligi- 
bility. The superintendent in rural towns has about the same 

' For statements of the powers exercised by local school authorities in 
the various states, see Bureau of Education, Bulletin, iQiS, No. 47, 
Digest of State Laws Relating to Public Education. 

' An excellent summary of the facts regarding rural school supervision 
is to be found in Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1916, No. 46, Rural 
Supervision. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 519 

range of duties as a city superintendent, and the small area 
of his jurisdiction makes it possible for him to keep in close 
touch with the work of individual schools and teachers. 

Rhode Island made a comparatively early beginning of town 
supervision under a law passed in 187 1. At present every 
town in the state employs a superintendent. New Hampshire 
allowed the formation of superintendency unions in 1899. By 
191 5, there were thirty such unions in existence and seventy- 
seven per cent of the school children of the state were attending 
supervised schools. Under permissive legislation Vermont 
had secured supervision in seventy per cent of the towns, when 
in 191 5 a new state law gave the state board of education 
power to designate supervision districts for the state at large 
and to employ supervisors. Towns and cities having at least 
twenty-five schools may employ their own superintendents. 
Where the state board employs the superintendent the state 
pays his salary, and in all cases a considerable proportion of 
the superintendent's salary. By an optional law, with sub- 
stantial state aid, Connecticut has developed town supervision 
since 1903 in all but a few towns of the state. 

Local Supervision under the County System. — Interest- 
ing and fruitful developments in rural super\'ision have fol- 
lowed the adoption of the county system in Ohio and Mary- 
land, to mention only two states organized under that system. 
In Ohio the county board (since 19 14) elects the county 
superintendent and is authorized to divide the county into 
subdistricts for supervisory purposes to include not more 
than sixty nor fewer than twenty teachers. The superintend- 
ents for the subdistricts are elected by the presidents of the 
village and rural school boards comprised within the district. 
In Maryland the plan has been followed of centralizing all 
supervision on the county basis and around the county super- 
intendent, but of allowing him assistants for the supervision 
of special grades and subjects. 

General Condition as to Local Supervision Extremely 
Unfavorable. — The examples so far given are intended to show 
the types of rural supervision that have been developed under 



520 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

a variety of forms cf organization. They represent probably 
the best that has been achieved in the country at large, al- 
though many additional examples of wise state policy and 
considerable efficiency in rural supervision might be chosen 
from the states not mentioned. In general, however, it is only 
fair to say that the conditions of rural school supervision are 
deplorable. In approximately eighty-two per cent of the 
counties of the United States in 191 6 ^ the duty of school super- 
vision, outside of towns and cities having their own superin- 
tendents, rested exclusively upon a single county superintend- 
ent without professional assistance and generally without even 
clerical assistance. In twenty-seven states in that year the 
county superintendent continued to be elected by the people 
as a political officer. His average salary was $1400 a year, 
ranging from $7500 to $250. Thirty -six per cent of all the 
county superintendents in the nation had had no education 
beyond what would be equivalent to a four-year high school 
course. While the law makes it the duty of the county super- 
intendent to visit each school in the county, usually that super- 
vision can be only perfunctory. The average number of schools 
per county in the forty states having county supervision in 
19 1 6, was eighty- four, with an average number of teachers 
per county of one hundred and thirty-two. It is easy to figure 
out the amount of time which a county superintendent under 
even average conditions could spend annually in each school- 
room under his supervision, in case he should devote all his 
time to school visitation. As a matter of fact, the large 
number of clerical and business functions which the county 
superintendent is called upon to perform, makes heavy inroads 
into his working time. 

Large Development of the Duties of the County 
Superintendent. — The office of county superintendent has had 
large development in many states, in some of which he is the 
most influential local authority. In Kansas, for example, 
where there are no township or county boards of education, 
the county superintendent has been given a wide range of 

^ See Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1Q16, No. 48, p. 31. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 521 

duties that would otherwise be at least shared with more 
broadly constituted local authorities if such existed. In that 
state the county superintendent is elected by the qualified 
voters of the county for a term of two years at a salary that 
ranges anywhere from $540 a year to $1800 (1916).^ A law 
of 191 8 provided for the employment of assistants in the larger 
counties. The superintendent must be the holder of at least 
a professional certificate and have had at least eighteen months' 
experience as a teacher. Among his duties are the following: 
to visit each school in the county every year; to attend the 
normal institute held annually in each county and "to en- 
courage the teachers to attend"; to hold a public meeting in 
each school district annually; to keep a record of each can- 
didate for a teacher's certificate and of each certificate granted; 
to keep a register of each teacher, where employed, salary, 
certificate held, and dates of opening and closing of school; 
keep record of apportionment of school funds; make quarterly 
report of his performance of duties to State Superintendent; 
apportion school funds; keep account of district school prop- 
erty; furnish county clerk with description of district boundary 
lines. 

The progress in rural supervision which has occurred in the 
more advanced states of which the systems have been described, 
points out the cardinal conditions of such progress. Smaller 
areas for supervisory purposes, and adequate salaries, longer 
terms, non-political selection, professional qualifications, and 
clerical assistance for the superintendent, and the employment 
of assistant superintendents or special supervisors, — all these 
are factors which have been employed to advantage in extend- 
ing professional oversight of schools in rural districts. The 
important changes which have occurred in the past generation 
are full of promise for future development. 

'Changed in 1918 for larger counties. 



52 2 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

City School Administration 

A Generation of Conspicuous Progress. — There is no 
other phase of public education in the United States which has, 
during the last thirty years, shown more conspicuous develop- 
ment than has city school administration. At the close of the 
eighties the cities were offering graded instruction in the ele- 
mentary branches and most of the more important ones were 
providing high school opportunities. They were, however, 
doing nothing to speak of along vocational lines. The number 
of public kindergartens was negligible. Medical inspection 
was unknown. The supervisory force was limited to the super- 
intendent or at most the superintendent and one or more as- 
sistant superintendents. Even the superintendent was com- 
pelled to expend most of his energies on clerical work and 
handy-man jobs. His professional powers and his relation- 
ships with the board of education were undefined. His per- 
formance of the professional duties of his office was upon an 
individualistic or a rule-of-thumb basis, because he had no body 
of approved practice or of scientific principles to guide 
him. 

At the present time all this is vastly changed. The school 
interest of cities has increased in complexity and magnitude 
until it absorbs the largest proportion of the public funds that 
is spent on any single aspect of city administration. To the 
elementary and the high school there has been added at one 
end the kindergarten and at the other end, in some cases, a 
municipal university or college, a teacher training school, or a 
junior college. In addition to the ordinary academic branches, 
provision is being made for all sorts of vocational instruction. 
The work of the day schools is being supplemented by the work 
of evening schools. Care for the mental development of the 
child is being supplemented by care for his physical health 
through medical examinations. The work of the schools with 
ordinary children is being extended to take care of the defective, 
the delinquent, and the incorrigible. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 523 

Not only is the range of the city's educational activities inr 
mensely greater than it was a generation ago, but those activi- 
ties are being carried on in a much more scientific fashion. It 
is not enough that there should be school buildings to house the 
children; it is essential that those buildings be constructed with 
reference to economy, educational utility, and the health and 
safety of the children. It is not enough to know the number of 
children in each grade; but we would know the facts of elimi- 
nation and retardation, and be prepared to make provision for 
those who fail to profit by the ordinary means of instruction. 
It is no longer sufficient to be able to give the total costs of 
the schools of the cit}^ for a year; but we should have at com- 
mand the costs of education by grades and by subject-unit as 
compared with like costs in other cities of like grade. Expert 
and adequate supervision is to be provided either by the super- 
intendent or by assistants and special supervisors among whom 
responsibility is divided — supervisors of districts, of schools, of 
special forms of education, of separate grades, of separate sub- 
jects. The development of scientific standards and tests of 
educational achievement makes it almost an obligation that such 
instruments should be applied to the measurement of the work 
done in the schools. The course of study is to be prepared to 
meet the special conditions of the city and to be changed in 
accordance with new and newly discovered needs. Text-books 
and equipment are to be chosen out of a truly bewildering array 
of possibilities and with reference to educational and hygienic 
principles. Schools and departments are to be inaugurated to 
meet the vocational needs of children and those children are to 
be assisted in finding the proper preparation for an intelligently 
chosen life's calling. And so one might multiply the details 
which make the business of public education in the cities gigan- 
tic and complex. 

The New Conception of the City Superintendent. — The 
changes which have taken place in the educational activities 
of cities have been reflected in the new position of the city 
superintendent. The business of handling the affairs of a city 



524 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

school system calls today for a body of special knowledge which 
the layman does not possess and for a refinement of adminis- 
tration which the board of education cannot supply. The city 
superintendent is today, generally speaking, a professional edu- 
cator who is able to attack the labors of his office as an expert. 
As such he is employed by the city boards of education to do 
a technical piece of work for which general good intention and 
common sense alone are no longer adequate. 

The Relationship between City Board of Education and 
Superintendent. — The relationship between the city board of 
education and the superintendent which is coming more and 
more generally to be accepted as the proper and desirable one 
follows the general analogy of the relationship which exists 
between a board of directors and the chief executive whom 
they select. The board of directors passes upon matters of 
general policy and holds the executive responsible for efficiently 
carrying them out. It does not interfere in the details of man- 
agement, but gives the executive a large amount of freedom 
in securing efficient results. If this analogy should be applied 
to the administration of schools, the superintendent would be 
entrusted with the general management of the school system 
under the direction of the board of education and in accordance 
with principles which the board accepts, as stated in their 
rules and regulations. The superintendent would serve as the 
expert advisor of the board, and as such he would attend all 
board meetings with full right to take part in discussion. Com- 
munications to the board from any subordinate officers and 
teachers of the school system would be made through the super- 
intendent, although the right of appeal to the board might well 
be maintained. The superintendent would have the right to 
recommend to the board for appointment all subordinates that 
are to be engaged in the work of instruction or supervision and 
would be given power to assign all such subordinates to their 
places and to transfer them as need arose, making a report to 
the board of his action. The purely professional work, such as 
the planning of courses of study, would be left to the super- 
intendent with the cooperation of principals and teachers. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 525 

Recommendations regarding the adoption of text-books, appa- 
ratus, and supplies would come from the superintendent to the 
board. The superintendent would also prepare the financial 
budget for the school system for the succeeding year to serve 
as the basis for the board's deliberations. The board, on the 
other hand, would concern itself only with matters of general 
policy and would hold the superintendent responsible for the 
efficient performance of his duties.^ 

Influence of Changed Conception of Board of Educa- 
tion upon Membership and Procedure. — The relationship 
between the superintendent of schools and the board of edu- 
cation which has just been described represents a condition 
which is increasingly coming about. In general, boards of 
education no longer pretend to administer either the practical 
or the professional details of the city's school business. The 
latter are coming to be placed more and more fully in the hands 
of the superintendent and the former to be distributed among 
the superintendent, a buiiness manager, and the paid secretary 
of the board of education. The board of education comes 
more and more to limit its activities to general legislation upon 
school affairs. As a result of this changed conception of the 
function of the board of education, the practice once in vogue 
of dividing the board into a large number of special commit- 
tees has been changed. The board tends to act as a whole 
after discussion as a committee of the whole. The business 
with which the board is concerned is so important that it 
requires concerted action and full consent; while the minor 
details of administration are left to competent and specially 
designated subordinates. The new conception of the board's 
functions has also led to a general reduction of the number of 
members comprising it. The large and unwieldy boards that 
were common in the eighties, and that persisted for a long 

^ The conception herewith described of the relationship between 
boards of education and superintendents is closely paralleled in the 
provisions of the New York law of 1917, which reorganized the boards 
of education of the cities of the state and redefined their powers and 
duties as well as those of the superintendent. See also Report U. S. 
Commissioner of Education, 1914, Vol. I, p. 65. 



52 6 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

time after that ^ have been found unsuitable for the new 
method of full committee action and have practically disap- 
peared. In 1914," out of 1271 cities reporting with a popula- 
tion of from 2500 to 30,000, there were only 181 that had 
more than seven members, and of these only ten had more than 
twelve members. Out of the entire number there were 907 
that had boards of from five to seven members. A similar 
study ^ of cities having over 100,000 population made in 191 7 
showed that the median number of members of boards of 
education was seven, while the mode was nine. The range 
was from three to forty-six. Legislation in a number of states 
has recently been corroborative of the same tendency. In 
Pennsylvania, for example, a new school code passed in 191 1 
classified the school districts of the state into four classes. 
The first class included cities of 500,000 population and over, 
the second class, of 30,000 to 499,999, the third class, of 
5000 to 29,999, and the fourth class, under 5000. For the 
first class, the boards of education are to consist of fifteen 
members and are to be appointed by the judges of the courts 
of common pleas of the counties. In the cities of the second 
class the boards are to number nine; in the third class, seven; 
and in the fourth class, five. In the lowest three classes 
the boards are to be elected at large at regular municipal 
elections by the regularly qualified voters. The result of this 
law has been to reduce the membership of many boards of 
education. Philadelphia changed from a board having twenty- 
one members to one of fifteen; Pittsburgh from forty-five to 
fifteen; Harrisburg from thirty-two to nine; Reading from 
sixty-four members to nine; Williamsport from fifty-two 
members to nine. Recent legislation in other states as well 
indicates the tendency to reduce the number of members of 
city boards of education. The Pennsylvania law's provision 

* A study of the administration of education of 90 cities of 40,000 
population or over that was made by the U. S. Commissioner of Educa- 
tion in 1904, showed that only 30 boards had as few as seven members 
while 30 had 15 members or more. Twenty-three boards had 20 mem- 
bers or more. 

^See Report, U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1914, Vol. I, p. 64. 

*See Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1917, No. 8. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 527 

for election of members of boards of education at large in- 
stead of by wards, as was formerly the general practice, is 
also recognized as being desirable. This method of selection 
tends to give a better personnel and to remove the members 
from local politics. 

Grov/ing Independence of Superintendent in Profes- 
sional Affairs. — As the professional advisor and the profes- 
sional expert employed by the board of education, the city 
superintendent tends to gain in responsibility and influence 
in proportion as he proves himself fit for his important posi- 
tion of educational leadership. The functions and powers 
of the office continue to depend almost entirely upon the 
rules of the board of education, but there is a growing ten- 
dency to give the superintendent more independence. With 
respect to the important professional function of appointing 
teachers, the condition in 191 7 was as follows: 'Tn nine 
cities of 100,000 or more population the superintendent ap- 
points; in seventeen, he recommends; in nine he nominates 
either one teacher or a list; in two he has equal say with 
the committee." ^ In fifty-three cities with between 25,000 
and 100,000 population the superintendent recommends to a 
committee of the board; in thirty-five he nominates; in 
twenty-three appoints; in sixteen, "advises"; in one he has 
"no power"; in one, he "passes on qualifications."- Such a 
summary indicates that the superintendent in practice enjoys 
a great deal of power in the selection of teachers. The in- 
fluence of the superintendent upon his board when it comes 
to matters of general policy, improvement of the service, the 
construction of new buildings, and a wide range of other 
matters besides, depends upon his professional knowledge and 
his personal qualities of leadership. The new superintendent 
in order to make the most of his opportunities needs to be a 
trained and growing student of the application of psychology 
to schoolroom practice, a keen observer of economic and 

^ The committee of the board on teachers. 

'U. S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1917, No. 8, Current Practice 
in City School Administration. 



528 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

social tendencies, a good business man, a practical executive, 
and a competent publicist. In addition he must have personal 
qualities that enable him to work successfully with men and 
women. This seems to be an exacting list of qualifications. 
That it is not unreasonable is indicated by the rapidly in- 
creasing number of men who exemplify all the qualifications 
named above and others in addition. The man who possesses 
the qualifications of a good superintendent can look forward 
to a position of large honor and influence and incidentally 
to a good salary. 

Fiscal Dependence or Independence for the Board of 
Education? — In the matter of the fiscal relationships of 
boards of education, the cities of the United States exhibit 
wide variety. In general there are two plans followed. One 
is to set a statutory limitation upon the tax rate which the 
board may levy and within those limits to give the board 
complete financial control. The other is to have the board 
present its budget to the city board of estimate, city council, 
or some other body or official, subject to change by the re- 
viewing authority. "In thirty-five per cent of the cities of 
100,000 or more population, the school board makes up its 
annual budget without referring it to any other body or officer; 
in twenty-five per cent the board refers it to the mayor, city 
council, commission, or board of aldermen; in thirty-two per 
cent, to a board of estimate; and in eight per cent, to the 
county commissioners. 

"In fifty-two per cent of the cities having between 25,000 
and 100,000 population, the school board makes up its 
annual budget without referring it to any other body or officer; 
in twenty-one per cent the board refers it to the mayor, city 
council, commission, or board of aldermen; in eighteen per 
cent to a board of estimate; in four per cent to the county 
board of supervisors; in three per cent to the tax payers; 
in one per cent to the controller." ^ 

Fiscal independence on the part of the board of education 

^ Taken from Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1917, No. 8, Current 
Practice in City School Administration. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 529 

might seem to destroy the theoretic symmetry of a unified 
city administration. The consensus of opinion among in- 
fluential educators, however, favors the plan of fiscal in- 
dependence for boards of education as making for improved 
schools and a better system of administration. A recent study 
of the educational conditions in a number of cities in which 
either the dependent or the independent fiscal relationship 
existed seems to show that in the cities where the boards do 
not have to submit their education estimates to a reviewing 
body the school system is better maintained and the educa- 
tional results are superior.^ Where the budget as prepared 
by the board of education must be passed upon by the board 
of estimate or other city authority, it not infrequently is 
pared down by the reviewing authority as the city perhaps has 
already a large general budget which the education estimate 
would increase to the point where new levels of taxation 
would have to be reached. Accordingly, in the interest of 
a professed economy, the funds required for the maintenance 
and the improvement of schools are denied. Where boards 
of education are given the power to prepare their budgets 
and to levy taxes on their municipalities to cover the amount 
required, within the limitations prescribed by law, such 
curtailment of educational expenditures is avoided. Fiscal 
independence of the board within statutory limits of taxation 
gives the public schools in effect a first lien on the wealth of 
the community. There seems to be some legislative trend 
in the direction of fiscal independence, but no adequate his- 
torical studies of the situation have, to the writer's knowledge, 
been published. There is little doubt, however, as to the 
consensus of opinion of professional schoolmen: they are 
strongly in favor of fiscal independence for city boards of 
education. 

Public Secondary Education 

The American High School Different from European 
Secondary Schools. — As the term secondary education is used 

* See Frasier, The Control of School Finance. 



530 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

in the United States it continues to apply to the work done 
in high schools or schools of like grade. It has been pointed 
out in earlier connections (see p. 457), that there has from 
the beginning been a decided dualism connected with the 
American high school, and as the years pass on and the high 
school increases in numbers and in importance, that dualism 
tends to become more instead of less pronounced. In our 
studies of secondary education in France and Germany, it 
was an easy matter to define a secondary school, for the 
secondary schools are connected closely with the higher in- 
stitutions of learning or with entrance to civil service. The 
badge of proficiency for study in the gymnasium or the lycee 
is standard and has a recognizable significance. Those coun- 
tries have also, in the interest of those who do not have any 
aspirations for professional pursuits or a first-class liberal 
education, made provision for a moderate extension of study 
beyond the common branches in subjects that have a bearing 
upon life's practical needs. The German middle school and 
the French higher primary school take care of this type of 
intermediate education, and where the education provided the 
pupil at the conclusion of the folk school or primary school 
course is frankly vocational, still other and specific designa- 
tions are applied to indicate that type of schooling. 

The High School Offers Three Distinct Types of 
Education. — In the United States at the present time all three 
grades and kinds of education separately defined in the ed- 
ucational parlance of France and Germany and provided for 
in separate types of school, — namely, secondary, intermediate, 
and vocational, are being offered side by side in the same 
high school or are offered in independent institutions to 
which the same class-name is applied. As a result we can 
come no closer to a definition of high school study than to 
say that it is school work of higher grade than that carried 
on in the elementary schools and lower than that done in 
colleges. It may include the classics, bookeeping, agriculture, 
stenography, practical cookery, trigonometry, vocal music, 
carpentry, modern languages, and millinery. It may be given 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 531 

in a school organized for two, for three, for four, or for six 
years' work. All the teaching may be done by a single teacher 
or by men or women specially trained for each subject. 
It may have the approval of a state board or other certificat- 
ing authority or it may not. 

The Social Meaning of the American High School. — 
The reason for this wide diversity of school activities carried 
on under the name of a single institution, has its roots in 
those social and economic conditions that were the product 
of the frontier. As has been pointed out in earlier pages 
of this work, the division of schools on the basis of economic 
or social classes was not followed in the United States because 
such a division was contrary to the major facts of American 
life and repugnant to the spirit of American institutions. In 
spite of the progressive industrialization of our economic life 
and of ever-widening economic gaps in the population, 
American thought persists in the conviction that the educa- 
tional opportunities of all should as nearly as possible continue 
equal. The American high school, with all its diversification 
of offerings, is the institution through which the doors of 
individual opportunity are to be kept wide open to all. This 
fact alone will go far in explaining much that otherwise 
might seem inconsistent and superficial in connection with 
secondary education in the United States. It also explains 
the truly gigantic efforts that have been made during the 
last generation to bring high school opportunities home to every 
boy and girl. 

The Rapid Growth of the High School following 1890. 
— The multiplication of high schools and the increase of high 
school pupils during the years following 1890 has been prob- 
ably the most conspicuous development of public education 
in the United States during that period. In 1890 there were 
only a little over 200,000 pupils enrolled in public high 
schools. In 1900 that number had increased to over 500,000; 
in 1910, to over 900,000; in 1915, to over 1,300,000; and 
in 1918, to over 1,600,000. The total increase in the number 
of public high schools since 1890 is over 452 per cent. In 



532 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

twenty-one states in 19 18, ten per cent or more of the entire 
school enrollment was in the high school. In California 19 
per cent of all school pupils were in high schools; in New 
Hampshire 18. i per cent; and in Massachusetts, 17.2 
per cent. 

The generous provision of high school facilities that is made 
in so large a proportion of the states, has come about in vari- 
ous ways. In centers of population the establishment of high 
schools began to take place rapidly after 1890, and today 
scarcely any town or village of 2500 inhabitants fails to have 
at least a partial high school course. The problem in the rural 
sections has been more difficult. As one reads over the legis- 
lative record, the first efforts to provide rural high schools, 
outside of the New England states, followed the lines of per- 
missive establishment of high schools by counties or town- 
ships. The New England states developed along the lines 
of the town, allowing or finally compelling all towns of a cer- 
tain population or taxable wealth to maintain high schools, 
and in the absence of a high school in any town, to pay the 
tuition of pupils in a neighboring town high school. In many 
parts of the country, consolidation of school districts provided 
first a system of graded schools and later high schools. An- 
other plan that has been widely followed in many states has 
beer the passage of laws allowing the formation of special 
districts for high school purposes. In many cases, the state 
has encouraged the establishment of high schools through the 
grants of state aid for the high schools as such, or for the 
teaching of special vocational branches in the high schools, or 
for teacher training classes. A number of the southern states 
have attempted to increase the supply of high schools through 
the establishment of such schools, nominally agricultural high 
schools, in congressional or other extensive districts. Alabama 
began this policy in 1889 and was followed by Georgia in 1906 
and by Virginia in 1908. Other Southern states have since 
then taken similar steps. Naturally the number of schools 
so added is small. ^ 
'See U. S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1918, No. 23. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 533 

Nothing could be more instructive in regard to the way in 
which high school facilities have been multiplied in the United 
States than to read the record of the legislation regarding high 
schools which was passed by the state legislatures in the years 
191 5, 19 1 6, and 19 17.' In that record, exhibiting as it does 
extreme differences in the high school development among the 
forty-eight states of the Union, one would get a resume of the 
various steps which the states now most advanced in respect 
to public secondary education have historically taken. Ala- 
bama, as an example of a state that is retarded in its provision 
of high schools, passed a law in 191 5 allowing cities and towns 
to make appropriations from city and town funds and to issue 
bonds to aid in the construction of county high schools. 
Arizona passed a law in 191 7 which authorized any school 
district having an average attendance of 200 or more or having 
a property valuation of $1,500,000 or more to establish a high 
school, or any two or more districts jointly having such attend- 
ance or valuation to form a union high school district. Another 
instructive example is seen in the Indiana law which puts 
pressure on sluggish townships that could have high schools 
but will not: "In each township having an assessed valuation 
of over $600,000 and wherein there is not now established a 
high school in such township or town therein and where there 
is no high school within three miles of the boundaries of such 
township, and wherein for the last two years there have been 
in said township eight or more graduates of the elementary 
schools, the township trustees shall (formerly may) establish 
and maintain therein a high school. In any township having 
a valuation of over $1,250,000, on petition of forty or more 
persons having charge of children of school age, township 
trustees shall establish and maintain a high school or joint 
high school and elementary school, at place named in petition, 
notwithstanding there may be a high school within three miles 
of the boundary of the township." - Or here again is the 
recent Kansas high school legislation which represents the 

'See U. S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1918, No. 23. 
'See Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1918, No. 23. 



534 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

effort of a state having wide stretches of thinly populated 
country to provide high school facilities for all pupils under 
especially difficult conditions. The legislature of that state 
provided in 19 15 for the creation of special rural high school 
districts on the petition of two-fifths of the legal voters of 
proposed district followed by a majority vote of the citizens in 
the district affected and allowed a special annual tax levy for 
the maintenance of the high school established. Another law 
passed by the Kansas legislature in the same year provided: 
"In every county in which provision is not made for free high 
school tuition for qualified pupils, any holder of a common 
school diploma residing in a district not maintaining a four- 
year accredited high school may attend any accredited high 
school of the county, or the high school nearest his residence, 
and his tuition fees shall be paid." ^ This law was only per- 
missive and depended upon the favorable vote of the electors 
affected, but in 191 7 the lawmakers became weary of tem- 
porizing in the matter and passed a law which directed the 
county commissioners to pay the tuition of high school pupils 
residing in remote places where there were not enough pupils 
to justify the organization of a high school. Finally take the 
legislation of California, a state which in 1915 already had 
developed perhaps the most comprehensive system of high 
school instruction provided by any state in the Union. A 
dozen or more laws relating to high schools were passed by 
the two legislatures meeting in 19 15 and 191 7, only a few of 
which will be noted here. A law of 191 5 legalized the estab- 
lishment of "intermediate" or junior high schools by high 
school boards. A second law of the same year made manda- 
tory a county tax to provide at least $60 per pupil of average 
attendance in high school, or at least $250 per teacher, and a 
further sum, not exceeding $5 a month per pupil, to pay for 
he transportation of high school pupils not living in high 
:chool districts. Still another law compelled the complete 
organization of the entire area of. each county into districts 
for high school purposes and provided for the election of a 

'See Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1918, No. 23. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 535 

high school board for such districts. A law passed in 191 7 
in California authorized the high school board of any high 
school district having an assessed valuation of $3,000,000 or 
more to provide for graduates of the high school a junior 
college course, or courses, of not exceeding two years' dura- 
tion. 

The provision of high school opportunities and the stand- 
ards of high schools vary greatly among the various states. 
Indeed, California with its universal system of high schools, 
liberally supported by the joint contributions of state and local 
authorities, standardized and supervised under the state de- 
partment of education, and offering a rich variety of instruction, 
presents a sharp contrast with any one of a half dozen states 
that occupy the other end of the high school scale. Differences 
in high school opportunity as great as those which are exhibited 
between California, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts on 
the one hand and South Carolina, Arkansas, and North Caro- 
lina on the other, are so extreme as to constitute a national 
weakness and to call for national action. But even such na- 
tional aid for the amelioration of a special situation would be 
bad policy if it should in any unfavorable way affect the 
process whereby the separate states, here a little and there a 
little, now permitting, now aiding the weak and aspiring dis- 
tricts, and now compelling the strong, but lethargic districts, 
have encouraged local authorities within their borders to in- 
crease year by year the supply of high schools and gradually 
to improve those already in existence. 

Flexibility of the High School. — The very extensive de- 
velopment of the high school in recent years has been largely 
due to the fact that it is flexible enough in its organization 
to meet every sort of condition. In 1917-1918 there were 
3222 high schools, or 23.1 per cent of the total, with twenty- 
five pupils or fewer; there were 3820, or 27.4 per cent of the 
total, with from twenty-six to 50 pupils, and there were 632 
with more than 500 pupils. There were 1856 high schools that 
offered only two years' work or less, 1929 that offered three 
years', and 10,166 that offered the standard four years'. These 



536 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

schools were located all over the country, in the largest cities, 
in smaller cities, in villages, and at country crossroads where 
the schoolhouse was the only building within a mile. They 
served the educational needs of youth who were going to col- 
lege and who knew it and wanted the high school work that 
would enable them to enter college without condition and under- 
take college work with success. They served the needs of youth 
who were going into offices, into shops, mills, and factories, of 
boys who were going to be farmers, and girls who were going 
to be farmers' wives. They served the needs of youth who 
didn't know what they were going to do but were planning to 
get a bit more education before they got at it. Those high 
schools were also serving the ends of a society which desired 
for its youth more extended preparation for the duties of adult 
life and of citizenship than the short course of the elementary 
school would provide, and which demanded in addition that the 
workers who were to produce the industrial, commercial, and 
agricultural wealth of the nation should be better prepared for 
efficient workmanship. With all these different social and 
individual needs affecting the activities of an institution that 
goes by a single name, but exhibits infinite variations as to 
resources, equipment, teaching staff, and pupils, it is no won- 
der that the American high school at the present time is a 
central point of educational reorganization. 

The Junior High School. — Within the last ten years there 
has been a great deal of discussion regarding the proper divi- 
sion of the twelve years which have represented the common 
range of public schooling. Psychological considerations indi- 
cate that a division should be made at the end of the sixth 
rather than the eighth year. Practical experience with seventh 
and eighth grade pupils reveals a considerable marking of time 
in the last two years of the eight-year elementary course. The 
demands of time economy call for the earlier beginning of 
certain subjects than the ninth year, both for vocational and 
for college preparatory ends. The desire to keep open the 
doors of opportunity as long as possible for all children points 
to the desirability of greater freedom for self-discovery before 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 537 

they are compelled to choose seriously and definitely a life 
calling. The general utility of manual education and the 
probability that the great majority of pupils will become in- 
dustrial workers or farmers, constitute a reason for greater 
attention to work with tools and materials. These and other 
reasons have prompted the organization of an intermediate or 
junior high school, composed of the seventh, eighth, and ninth 
grades or some other combination of intermediate grades, in 
which the various educational modifications mentioned above 
may be introduced. The junior high school idea is having 
wide adoption and promises to become the standard form of 
organization over the country at large for the intermediate 
grades. 

And here again we are back on oid ground ! All the children 
of all the people are to go to a common school and are there 
to enjoy as fully as possible the opportunity of making the 
most of their endowment. The junior high school proposes 
to give the child the chance to find out what he likes to do 
and can do. If he is cut out for a mechanical employment, 
says the junior high school protagonist, let him find it out 
early and, while keeping up his general and civic instruction 
and preparing him for a better use of his leisure time, give 
him some school work that will have a bearing on vocational 
fitness. If he is one of those upon whom society can profitably 
expend the cost of a liberal and extensive education, let that 
fact be revealed, and, if necessary, let him be plucked out of 
the travelling belt of economic circumstance and given his 
chance. 

The "Cosmopolitan High School." — But after the process 
of self-revelation and social selection takes place, what then? 
The American answer seems to be, let the high school continue 
to serve the individual and society by further preparing him 
along lines that his ability or his inclinations indicate. If he is 
to be a machinist, give him a course that will make him a 
machinist, — not more or less experimental work with tools, but 
real vocational education, with grease, overalls, time-clock, and 
part-time work in the industries. If he is to be a bookkeeper, 



538 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

then let the work to be done in the last four years of his 
school life make him, among other things, an efficient book- 
keeper. If he is going to college, give him subjects he will 
need if he is going to do efficient college work. If the pupil 
be a girl and is probably not going to college, then give her 
four years of work that will prepare her better to perform the 
duties of the vocation of wife and motherhood. But let all 
these boys and girls attend the same high school. Let them 
all meet together in some aspects of their high school course. 
Give them a common core of knowledge and a common stock 
of ideals that will make them all familiar with the world they 
live in and intelligent about and loyal to their duties as citi- 
zens of the same community and nation. 

That is the American version of the Einheitsschtde or the 
ecole unique. The Commission of the National Educational 
Association on the Reorganization of Secondary Education has 
declared in favor of the closest possible union in the high 
school of the widest possible range of curriculums. The work 
of most cosmopolitan high schools in the greater American 
cities bears a pretty close resemblance to that expressed ideal, 
and the educational necessities of rural and small town life 
demand a wide diversity of school offerings beyond the ele- 
mentary grades. The great administrative problem continues 
to be that of maintaining a high grade of such academic work 
as will test and improve the powers of those who should and 
will follow college and university careers, while at the same 
time providing a rich offering of subjects that will serve the 
needs of the larger group of youth whose school experience 
will end with the high school. 

The High School and the College. — The statistics of 
public high schools for 1917-1918^ show that for the United 
States as a whole, twenty-eight per cent of the high school 
graduates continued their education in institutions of college 
grade while fourteen per cent in addition were attending nor- 
mal schools or other institutions of higher rank than the high 
school. In all forty-two per cent of all high school graduates 

^ See Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1920, No. 19. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 539 

for that year continued their education in more advanced in- 
stitutions. 

As a result of the large college preparatory function of the 
public high school it has been essential that some means be 
found to estimate the quality of the work done in the high 
schools and their fitness to ask for their graduates the privi- 
lege of entering upon college or university work without exami- 
nation. The first extensive effort along the line of accrediting 
high schools for college entrance was made by associations of 
colleges and preparatory schools (see p. 458). Following the 
formation of the New England Association of Colleges and 
Preparatory Schools in 1885, the Association of Colleges and 
Preparatory Schools in the Middle States and Maryland was 
organized in 1892, the North Central Association of Colleges 
and Secondary Schools, in 1895, and the Association of Colleges 
and Preparatory Schools of the Southern States, in the same 
year. The work which these associations have done in defining 
or setting standards with reference to units of high school 
study, minimum requirements for graduation, preparation of 
teachers, laboratory and library facilities, buildings, number 
of pupils per teacher, and so forth, has been extremely influen- 
tial in establishing standards for high school achievement.^ 

State universities in the seventies began to undertake the 
inspection of the state high schools, but with the development 
of state departments of education and the all but universal 
appointment of high school inspectors or supervisors on the 
state department staffs, this work of accrediting high schools 
has largely been turned over to the state departments of edu- 
cation. 

In considering the movement toward standardized high 
school curriculums, one should not lose sight of the pioneer work 
done by the "Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies," 
appointed by the National Educational Association in 1892.* 

^ See Bureau of Education Bulletin, iqiq, No. 45, The Accredited 
Secondary Schools of the North Central Association. 

' For an excellent summary of the recommendations of the "Commit- 
tee of Ten" see Brown, The Making of Our Middle Schools, p. 381 
and ff. 



540 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

While the curriculums recommended by the Committee never 
secured extensive adoption their efforts to define thorough work 
of high school grade did much to create common standards on 
higher levels. The combinations of studies included in the 
Committee's model programs represented a rather conserva- 
tive selection and did not depart greatly from the conception 
of the high school as mainly a preparatory school for college. 
The Committee was emphatic in its opinion that no matter 
whether or not the high school pupil expected to enter college, 
his high school work should be the same, which was to say, 
it should be made up largely of the subjects that were recog- 
nized for college preparation. The development of high school 
curriculums since the Committee made its report has taken a 
direction quite different from that which the Committee stood 
for, but the Committee's recommendation that any combination 
of courses, pursued with thoroughness and meeting the quantity 
qualification, should be accepted for college entrance, has come 
increasingly to prevail. The Commission on the Reorganiza- 
tion of Secondary Education of the National Educational 
Association in their report entitled "Cardinal Principles of 
Secondary Education," ' express this principle in full view of 
the large diversity of present-day high school curriculums and 
the great amount of vocational education given: "The tradi- 
tion that a particular type of education, and that exclusively 
non-vocational in character, is the only acceptable preparation 
for advanced education, either liberal or vocational, must 
. . . give way to a scientific evaluation of all types of secon- 
dary education as preparation for continued study. This 
broader conception need not involve any curtailment of oppor- 
tunities for those who early manifest academic interest to 
pursue the work adapted to their needs. It does, however, 
mean that pupils who, during the secondary period, devote 
a considerable time to courses having vocational content should 
be permitted to pursue whatever form of higher education, 
either liberal or vocational, they are able to undertake with 
profit to themselves and society." 
'Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1918, No. 35- 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 541 

There is, on the other hand, a very genuine conviction 
among many American educators, particularly those connected 
with institutions of higher education and more specifically 
those concerned with college admissions, that any considerable 
amount of vocational work or of the less exacting high school 
studies, constitutes a dangerous lowering of the college en- 
trance standard and does not represent adequate preparation 
for the work of even a higher technological or professional 
institution. The tendency to make the work of the high school 
minister directly to the needs of practical life, as in the case 
of the French higher primary schools, has come about in re- 
sponse to insistent sociological demands and will probably 
continue and gain strength. To insist, however, that curricu- 
lums so weighted with vocational work are, by a sort of divine 
right of democracy, adequate preparation for higher studies, is 
another matter, just as the French higher primary school is 
not a lycee. At the present time the proper relationship be- 
tween the people's high school and the colleges and universities 
is undetermined, and the problems connected with that issue 
constitute one of the critical phases of American education. 

Vocational Education 

In the discussion of secondary education it has been neces- 
sary to touch upon the increasingly large part of the high 
school offering which vocational studies are coming to repre- 
sent, but it seems desirable to pay separate attention to that 
type of school work. Recognition of vocational education as 
an important aspect of the nation's educational task came with 
extreme slowness and was belated long after the time when the 
industrial needs of the nation were known to call for a class 
of trained workers for which we were in large part depending 
on foreign supply. The industrial developments which oc- 
curred in the thirty years following the Civil War created the 
need for better educated workmen, foremen, and managers, 
but it is only the last fifteen years that have seen any deter- 
mined effort to meet that need through the establishment of 



542 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

public vocational schools. Indeed, it is true to say that public 
vocational education in this country has had more develop- 
ment in the last seven or eight years than in all the years 
before them. 

The need for additional facilities for training workmen, 
before the passage of the Massachusetts Law of 1906, was met, 
where it was met at all, largely through the maintenance of a 
few private trade and secondary technical schools, a small 
number of industrial schools maintained by municipalities, 
evening technical schools, and schools for workmen maintained 
by corporations. The entire supply of such schools in 191 1, 
considering the industrial need, was almost negligible.^ Be- 
sides the work of a strictly vocational nature offered in the 
schools just mentioned, a number of manual training high 
schools were in existence and many other high schools were 
offering "manual training" courses that were expected to serve 
as preparation for advantageous pursuit of industrial callings. 
In the nineties there occurred, however, a sharp break in the 
ranks of the advocates of industrial education. As has been 
pointed out in an earlier connection, there were some educators 
who supported industrial work in the schools on the ground of 
its general educative values, while others saw in manual train- 
ing a means of preparing industrial workers. As the demands 
for more specific industrial training became more pressing, 
those who favored manual training for industrial purposes 
tended to make that work more and more practical and to 
connect it up more closely with the actual conditions and needs 
of trades and factories. As a result the advocates of "real" 
vocational education came to eschew the manual training exer- 
cises as practically worthless for vocational purposes, and to 
demand specific vocational training in the public school sys- 
tem that would at once serve the needs of industry and the 
personal opportunity of the prospective workman. 

'See National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, 
Bulletin No. 11, A Descriptive List of Trade and Industrial Schools in 
the United States. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 543 

Early State Action in respect to Vocational Education. 
— The first action by any state to stimulate the development 
of vocational schools was the appointment in Massachusetts 
of a Commission on Industrial and Technical Education, which 
made its report in 1906. That report showed not only the 
needs of industry in the state for trained workmen but also 
revealed the fact that large numbers of boys and girls who 
left the elementary schools at the conclusion of the compulsory 
education period were drifting about doing nothing or entering 
"blind alley" occupations that must eventually lead to eco- 
nomic failure. The recommendations of the Commission led 
to the passage in 1906 of a law whereby the state undertook 
to cooperate with local communities in the maintenance of 
vocational schools. By the terms of the law the administration 
of vocational education was placed in the hands of a State 
Commission on Industrial Education. In 1909 the Commission 
was abolished and its duties transferred to a reorganized State 
Board of Education. A Deputy Commissioner of Education 
to be in charge of vocational education was provided for. 
Wisconsin passed a permissive law in 1907 allowing cities or 
school districts to maintain vocational schools and in 191 1 
took the significant step of making it compulsory upon any 
minor between 14 and 16 years of age, who was working 
under "permit," to attend evening school, industrial school, 
or continuation school for five hours per week for six months 
in each year, wherever such a school existed. Employers 
were at the same time compelled to allow their minor em- 
ployees who attended such schools a corresponding reduction 
of hours of work. New York began its system of state aided 
vocational schools in 1909. By 19 14, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania, and Indiana had also made provision for state systems 
of vocational schools partly supported by state aid and super- 
vised by state agents. In that year nine other states were 
making state appropriations to communities for schools offer- 
ing approved courses in industrial, manual, or household arts. 
As a result of this legislation there were developed under public 



544 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

auspices a number of types of vocational school. There were 
full-time day schools, part-time and day continuation schools, 
evening continuation schools, and evening schools, giving trade 
preparatory courses for boys and girls, trade extension courses 
for adults, homemaking courses for girls, and agricultural 
courses for boys and girls. 

Results of the Smith-Hughes Act. — The appointment of 
the Commission on National Aid to Vocational Education in 
19 1 4, the report of that Commission, and the passage of the 
Smith-Hughes Act in 191 7, have already been discussed in 
another connection (see p. 481 and p. 483). The Smith- 
Hughes Act has resulted, even under the unfavorable condi- 
tions which ensued upon its passage, in a great stimulation of 
the states in their provision of vocational schools. By January 
I, 1918, all the states had accepted the provisions of the act 
and had had their plans for developing vocational education 
approved by the Federal Board. "Federally aided vocational 
courses have been set up (19 19) in agriculture in forty-one 
states, in trade and industrial subjects in thirty-two states, 
and in home economics in twenty-nine states; twenty- 
two states have organized courses in each of these three fields; 
in forty-six states teacher-training courses have been organ- 
ized." ^ In 1919 there were 2039 vocational schools in the 
United States which received an average sum of $557.88 from 
the federal government out of the Smith-Hughes fund. That 
year saw a total increase in the number of teachers in voca- 
tional schools so aided of 1121 over the number of the pre- 
ceding year. In the State of Arkansas the increase was from 
nineteen teachers to two hundred and forty-nine, in Ohio from 
one hundred and sixty-six to five hundred and twenty-four, 
and in Illinois from seventy-six to two hundred and forty-three. 
The pupils attending such schools increased from one hundred 
and sixty-four thousand in the first year of operation of the 
act to one hundred and ninety-five thousand in the second 
year, 1919. 

'See Bureau of Education, Bulletin, igig, No. 20, Vocational Edu- 
cation. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 545 

While the United States remains far behind many other 
modern nations in its provision for vocational education, a 
system of organization and financial support has been devised 
which promises rapid development in this field. 



Continuation Schools 

Before 19 19 there were only two states in the United States 
that compelled attendance of working minors in continuation 
schools. Wisconsin had enacted such a law in 19 11 (see p. 
543) and Pennsylvania in 191 5. In 1919, seventeen other 
states passed either mandatory or permissive laws regarding the 
maintenance of continuation schools and the attendance of 
minors in such schools. At the present time (June 192 1 ) there 
are twenty-six states which have laws either requiring or per- 
mitting the establishment of continuation schools for working 
children over fourteen years of age. In ten states the law 
extends the period of compulsory school attendance to the age 
of sixteen, in ten, to the age of eighteen, and in the case of 
three other states to the age of twenty-one in case the minor 
is unable to read, write, or speak English. The term varies 
from sixteen weeks to the length of the regular school year 
and the hours per week vary from four to eight. 

The almost spontaneous development in this country of con- 
tinuation schools is traceable to at least two important sources. 
One of these is the aid held out for such schools in the Smith- 
Hughes Act when they offer vocational instruction. The 
other is the very great concern, which was one of the results 
of the war, for the removal of illiteracy, for better training for 
citizenship, and for the Americanization of aliens. We learned 
that vast numbers of foreign-born and children of foreign-born, 
who lived under our institutions, voted in our elections, and 
were called upon to serve in the army, were unable to use the 
English language and were ignorant of American traditions and 
current civil practices. In practically every state where there 
is a considerable proportion of foreign-born, vigorous efforts 
are being made to bring every such person into a school in 



546 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

which he can learn to read, write, and speak the English 
language and become familiar with American government and 
institutions.^ 

The continuation school as it has been organized in the 
various states during the past years is not exclusively a voca- 
tional school. It is partly that, even largely that, but it is 
also being developed to serve as a supplement to the general 
education of the pupils who leave school to work at the earliest 
possible legal age. The Commission of the National Educa- 
tional Association on the War-Time Emergency in Education 
saw in the continuation school an educational agency that de- 
served extended development and which promised large possi- 
bilities of social service: "Without sacrificing in any essential 
way its service to industry, the scope of the continuation 
school should be broadened to include those elements of gen- 
eral and liberal education that are so fundamental to sound 
democratic citizenship. It should supply to the boys and girls 
who must leave school and go to work something of the insight, 
something of the broader outlook, something of the stimulus 
to mental growth that the full-time high schools and colleges 
provide. It should not be a thing apart, a cheap makeshift 
for the unfortunate, but rather a recognized and well-supported 
unit in democracy's public school system." - 

Compulsory Attendance 

While there has been steady improvement in the matter of 
school attendance in the United States during the past thirty 
years, much remains to be desired in that respect. The oppo- 
sition to compulsory attendance laws has continued up to very 
recent years in some states on the ground that such laws were 
un-American, undemocratic, and an interference with the per- 
sonal liberty of the individual. As has been said in an earlier 
connection twenty-six states had enacted compulsory attend- 
ance laws before 1890, although most of them were dead letter 

^See U. S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin, igig, Nos. 76-77- 
' A National Program for Education, National Education Association, 
Washington, D. C, June, 1918. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 547 

statutes. By 19 14 all the states except six had enacted such 
laws of greater or less effectiveness but in four states the laws 
were local option measures and applied to school districts only 
on the favorable vote of the people of the district. Mississippi 
was the last of the states to^pass a compulsory attendance law, 
of the local option variety, in 1918. In 1920 the law was 
given statewide application. 

A study of the compulsory attendance regulations in effect 
in the various states discloses great variety.^ A number of the 
more thickly populated states have developed their laws and 
their enforcement administration to a fairly satisfactory point, 
but in all too many states the statutory provision is faulty 
and the enforcement of the laws inadequate. In a number of 
states where there are compulsory attendance laws the period 
of attendance is only a fraction of the entire school year. This 
represents the early stage through which almost all states have 
passed. The provision of full-term attendance is coming 
generally to be demanded. Most states have also advanced 
to the point of calling for truant officers, but in many cases the 
pay and qualifications of these officers are put too low for effi- 
ciency. While a census of school children is pretty generally 
required to be made by the local authorities, such records are 
notoriously inexact. An accurate continuous list of all school 
children made by local officers under the supervision of state 
agents is a prime requisite to success in securing good attend- 
ance. But even when such a list is honestly and carefully 
prepared, it is possible for children of school age to escape the 
law through the pretense that they are attending private 
schools. Not until every private school is compelled to co- 
operate with the public education and police authorities in this 
matter will this difficulty be removed. A second difficulty that 
may arise even where a good list is maintained comes through 
the issuance of working permits by other than school authori- 
ties and the issuance of these peiTnits for a definite period. 
It would improve the situation greatly if child labor laws were 

* For an excellent discussion of the problem see Ensign, School At- 
tendance and Child Labor. 



548 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

made to correspond to attendance requirements, and if labor 
permits to children of school age were issued only by a re- 
sponsible education authority to a specific employer who should 
return the permit to the issuing authority when the child leaves 
his employment. Finally, the tendency with local authorities 
seems to be to let enforcement of compulsory attendarice 
measures slip. The experience of states that have state agents 
for the enforcement of school attendance laws indicates that 
that is the most effective means of securing conscientious ap- 
plication of the laws by local school officers. Every year sees 
new legislation in the various states which is designed to stiffen 
the regulations regarding school attendance and to introduce 
some of the above named practices that make for efficient 
administration. 

The Professional Education of Teachers and 
Supervisors 

The changes which the last generation has seen in the num- 
bers and the improving standards of the high school have been 
definitely reflected in the normal school. With the almost 
universal provision of high school opportunities it has become 
much less necessary for the normal schools to provide classes 
for those who have only completed the work of the elementary 
grades. In more than twenty states in 1917-1918/ the en- 
trance requirement of the state normal schools was four full 
years of high school work and in many of the remaining states 
individual normal schools had established that entrance quali- 
fication. In a large number of schools, however, candidates 
who had finished the eighth grade were accepted as students. 
In other cases intermediate requirements between full high 
school work and eighth grade graduation were made. The 
tendency undoubtedly is toward high school graduation as the 
prerequisite of the normal school work, and as the supply of 
local high schools becomes more adequate the normal school 
will be able to rid itself of the function which it has historically 

'See Bureau of Education, Bulletin, igig, No. 81, Statistics of Normal 
Schools. 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 549 

fulfilled of providing secondary school opportunities for large 
districts. 

The character of the normal schools is in another way 
closely bound up with the conditions of secondary education. 
We have seen that high schools have naturally developed out 
of the elementary schools as local communities have felt able 
to afford the more extended curriculum. High schools of one, 
two, and three years have historically been common and con- 
tinue in existence in appreciable numbers. In many states it 
was long after high schools had become numerous before any 
attempt at standardization occurred, and in some states today 
there are no authoritative standards of high school work. 
Under such conditions it was but natural that the certificate 
that was good for elementary schools should be good for the 
high school. The teacher who was a graduate of a normal 
school might presumably be considered better prepared for 
teaching than one without such training. The better teaching 
opportunities were to be found where high schools were being 
established. As a result the graduate of the normal school was 
both eligible and desirable as a high school teacher, and many 
high schools were taught by teachers whose maximum academic 
preparation was that which had been acquired in normal 
schools. 

However, as standards for high schools began more gener- 
ally to be set up, the academic requirements of teachers tended 
to be placed at graduation from a four-year college course. 
But in many cases where different classes of high schools were 
recognized by the state departments of education, normal 
graduates were recognized as eligible to teach in the less de- 
veloped types of high schools. The normal schools found 
themselves in the position of being allowed to train teachers 
for two-year high schools, for example, but excluded by the 
state department's requirements from preparing teachers for 
standard four-year high schools. In face of this situation the 
normal schools have tended to expand their courses so as to 
be of four years' duration beyond high school. In other words 
they have become teachers colleges with the right to grant 



550 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

academic degrees and to present their graduates from the four 
years' course as eligible for the state high school certificate. 

The excursion of normal schools into the field of college- 
grade instruction is so recent that there yet exists among the 
normal schools offering such work a distressing lack of uni- 
formity, and in some instances a deplorable absence of stand- 
ards of good work. Many students of education have insisted 
that in entering the field of preparing high school teachers the 
normal schools are getting out of their legitimate province. 
The work of preparing elementary teachers, they say, continues 
to be inadequately done, and that is the real work cut out for 
the normal schools. They would insist that normal schools 
remain institutions for the training of elementary teachers. 
Those who are in charge of the normal schools, on the other 
hand, dislike to give up their highest type of students, for 
collegiate departments attract numbers and a better type of 
student, and the carrying on of the higher academic work 
gives tone and adds vitality to the institution as an academic 
community. As a matter of fact, the present trend seems to 
be decidedly in the direction of allowing normal schools to 
expand into degree-granting teachers colleges. Illinois, Kan- 
sas, Missouri, and Colorado were among the first states to allow 
their normal schools to grant standard bachelor's degrees. In 
the last two years many states have reconstituted their normal 
schools on such a basis, until at the present time (March 
1922), there are ninety-one teacher training institutions recog- 
nized by the National Association of Teachers Colleges. 

In spite of the uncertainties that exist in respect to the 
normal schools today, there has come about a practically uni- 
versal acceptance of high school graduation as a basis for 
the normal school course and for the development of two- 
year courses beyond high school as the minimum preparation 
for elementary school teachers. Three-year courses beyond the 
high school for elementary teachers are also coming to be more 
general. On the other hand, there continue to be a great many 
normal schools in which the entire work for the elementary 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 551 

teachers' certificate is comprised in a two- or three-year course 
beyond the elementary school. 

The Preparation of Secondary School Teachers in 
Colleges. — With the increasing tendency to make four years 
of college work the minimum standard of preparation for high 
school teachers, the colleges have attempted to supply a cer- 
tain amount of professional work. Courses are given in edu- 
cational psychology, history of education, educational admin- 
istration, and other professional subjects. In many states, 
colleges are accredited by the state department of education 
for giving this professional work for prospective high school 
teachers, and on the completion of, say, fifteen semester hours 
of education courses, the graduate is granted a certificate which 
allows him to teach in the high schools of the state. Within 
the last twenty years this practice has had rapid and almost 
universal development, so that at present most colleges have 
departments of education and are assisting in the supply of 
secondary school teachers. In practically all the state universi- 
ties and in most of the larger independent colleges and uni- 
versities schools of education have been formed. Teachers 
College, New York City, founded in 1888, became a part of 
Columbia University in 1898. The School of Education of 
Chicago University was organized as a separate school in 
1901. In 1902 the University of Missouri established a 
School of Education, followed the next year by the University 
of Virginia. Since that time development in this direction has 
been rapid. 

^'he Graduate Study of Education.^The creation of uni- 
versity schools of education is of much wider significance, 
however, than the contribution which such schools make to the 
supply of secondary school teachers. The greatest service 
which such institutions have performed is to place the stady 
of education upon the plane of scientific research. The uni- 
versity school of education continues to prepare secondary 
school teachers, but an increasingly larger part of its work 
now lies in the preparation of teachers for normal schools and 



552 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

colleges, and in the professional education of supervisors, city 
superintendents, and statistical experts. The rise in the 
position and influence of the city superintendent and the ex- 
tension of expert state school administration have been made 
possible owing to the scientific study of education that has 
been developed during the last thirty years in graduate schools 
and colleges of education. No one properly understands the 
spirit and the workings of American education unless he 
properly appreciates the part that is played in it by men and 
women trained in university colleges of education. The large 
amount of local autonomy which various classes of school 
authorities enjoy in this country gives opportunity for such 
trained men and women to apply freely the broader knowledge 
and the scientific method which their university studies have 
given them. In this way every man and woman trained 
through graduate study of education may become a center of 
school improvement. 

The university school for the graduate study of education 
is the capstone of democracy within the school system. The 
elementary school teacher, prepared for service in the normal 
school, can apply his normal school courses in part require- 
ment for the bachelor's degree. He can complete the college 
course either in a liberal arts college or in the school of edu- 
cation of a university. From that point he can continue his 
studies of education, after practical school experience or not, 
in the university graduate school and go on to the doctorate 
in education. The way from the humblest position as teacher 
of an elementary school to the most influential position of 
educational leadership is wide open for him without penalty 
or restriction, and dependent only on his native ability and 
his resolution. 

Other Teacher Training Agencies. — In spite of the rapid 
increase in normal schools, the supply of trained teachers has 
remained far below the entire number required. Normal school 
graduates have generally been able to enter the better paid 
positions, mainly in the graded systems of the cities. As a 
result the normal schools have done little to improve the quali- 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 553 

fications of the rural teachers. In order to supply some mini- 
mum training for that class of teachers, a number of states 
have originated county normal schools, and still others have 
organized teacher training classes in local high schools.^ This 
recent development repeats the early conditions of teacher 
training in this country when this work was carried on almost 
entirely in the academies. Wisconsin is the only state that has 
separate county normal schools, but in 191 7 five other states 
had separate departments for teacher training in county or 
other high schools. In the same year fifteen states recognized 
teacher training work done as a regular part of the high school 
work. In 191 7 these schools graduated 16,626 prospective 
elementary school teachers. 

The Training of Teachers in Service. — When it is con- 
sidered that four-fifths of all the teachers in the United States 
have a preparation for their work of less than two years of 
study beyond a four-year high school, and that one-fourth of 
the entire number have had less than the equivalent of two 
years of high school,- it is easily seen that it becomes essential 
to attempt something in the way of improving their efficiency 
while they are in service. To this end teachers' reading circles 
have been organized in a large number of states, and the 
teachers' institute has become a regular part of the adminis- 
tration of education. Much of this work has been inefficient 
in the past and much of it remains so; but a tendency to 
make of the teachers' institute a short course with regular 
class exercises and group discussions promises to i'mprove its 
efficiency. Considerable improvement is being accomplished 
through the aid granted by local school authorities to enable 
teachers in service to attend the summer schools that are 
conducted in almost all normal schools and colleges. In some 
cases promotion and increase of pay are made to depjend upon 
summer school study. 

^ See Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1917, Wo. 31, Rural Teacher 
Preparation in County Training Schools and High Schools. 
^See Keith and Bagley, The Nation and fts Schools, p. 208 and ff. 



554 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

Private and Parochial Schools 

It is difficult to give the facts concerning private and pa- 
rochial schools in the United States, because only a few states 
require those in charge of such schools to return attendance 
statistics or to give any other information about their work. 
With almost negligible qualification it may be said that pri- 
vate schools are completely independent of the public educa- 
tion authorities. Such indifference on the part of civil authori- 
ties would lead one to suppose that the private schools were 
few and unimportant in American education; but indeed quite 
the contrary is true. In 191 7-19 18 the United States Com- 
missioner of Education estimated (for actual statistics are 
lacking) that there were 1,915,125 pupils enrolled in private 
elementary, secondary, and business schools, as compared with 
20,853,516 in the public schools. That is to say, almost one- 
twelfth of all the children attending elementary and high 
schools in the United States were in private and parochial 
schools. In some states the proportion ran considerably higher 
than that. In Massachusetts almost one-sixth, in Illinois, over 
one-sixth, and in Rhode Island, almost one-fifth, of all the 
pupils were in non-public schools. 

The motives that lead to the maintenance of private schools 
in the United States are various. In the large cities with their 
polyglot population, where single areas served by the same 
school may embrace all the extremes of wealth and social 
background and culture, there is a growing tendency for 
parents to send their children to private schools if they can 
afford it or even when to do so requires considerable financial 
sacrifice. They do not wish their children to acquire the 
language habits, the moral standards, or the social usages of 
Ihe city street. This motive is hardly present outside of the 
large cities of the country, which is to say it is mainly confined 
to the cities of the East. In the smaller cities all over the 
country or in any city where the population is largely native 
and where violent extremes of culture and language habits do 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 555 

not exist, the children of all the people, rich and poor, attend 
the public elementary and high schools. 

A second motive which leads to the maintenance of the 
private schools is the desire of certain religious sects to in- 
clude specific religious instruction in the day's work of the 
schools. They are undoubtedly sincere in their conviction 
that religious observances and instruction in religious dogmas 
are elements in the education of children that deserve first 
place, and they desire to maintain schools in which the chil- 
dren will be in a daily atmosphere of piety and will become 
habituated to religious attitudes. Owing to the thorough in- 
termingling of various religious sects in the population, religious 
instruction in the public school has been found impracticable 
and as a result the curriculum has become almost completely 
secularized. Accordingly, in order to give their children the 
religious instruction desired, a number of sects maintain ex- 
pensive and elaborate systems of parochial schools paralleling 
the public school establishment. 

There is a certain phase of private education as carried on 
by some, but by no means all, religious bodies that has come 
in for considerable attention during and since the War. In 
some cases, the religious body is composed of persons recently 
come from a foreign land who use their native language in their 
religious services and desire to have their children taught the 
language, literature, and traditions of the homeland. In such 
cases, the language of the private school has often been some 
other than English and the pupils have been schooled in the 
traditions of Germany or some other cultural unit. In an 
English speaking society the pupils were being taught to speak 
and think in a foreign language, and in America they were 
growing up without instruction concerning American history 
and institutions. Der alte Fritz, der erste Kaiser, Garibaldi, 
Kosciusko, or Gustavus Adolphus were their heroes and they 
did not know Washington, Lincoln, or Lee. We do not have 
accurate statistics of the private schools in which foreign lan- 
guages were used, but it is safe to say that thousands of pros- 



556 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

pective American citizens were before the war being prepared 
for their duties in such restricted schools of American de- 
mocracy. 

There is little disposition in the United States to restrict 
either individuals or organizations in their freedom to maintain 
private schools. It is pretty generally regarded as the right 
of the individual parent to choose some special type of in- 
struction for his children if he so desires. There is, however, 
a rapidly maturing conviction that the nation has a right to 
demand of all private schools that they measure up to the 
standards of educational efficiency which the public schools 
maintain. Where the state is raising the standards of prepara- 
tion and proficiency of the public school teachers, elabo- 
rating the machinery of supervision, carefully organizing the 
subject-matter of instruction, and developing agencies for the 
scrupulous observance of attendance and child-labor laws, it 
is illogical to allow one- twelfth of all the children to remain 
altogether outside that farsighted and benevolent jurisdiction. 
If it would be inconsistent with the American spirit of indi- 
vidual liberty to refuse private parties and associations the 
right to maintain their own schools and systems of schools, it 
is no less inconsistent with the demands of national solidarity 
and efficiency, that those schools be compelled to come up to 
the standards of attendance, teacher-preparation, civic in- 
struction, and the proficiency of pupils in school work, which 
are set up for the public schools. As to the maintenance of 
any schools — public or private — in which some language other 
than English is the basis of instruction, that is obviously unfair 
and unjustifiable. It is unfair to the children to deprive them 
of the most adequate knowledge possible of the language, the 
history, and the institutions of the land they will live in. It 
is unfair to the adopted country to accept the advantages and 
opportunities which it will offer to those children, while at- 
tempting to maintain in their minds a major loyalty for the 
land from which their parents came. It is unfair to the adopted 
country, furthermore, because it is in effect withholding from 
it the fullest possible social, economic, and political service 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 557 

which those children might render. In the interest of national 
unity and national progress, no school in the United States 
should be allowed to make any language other than English 
the basis of communication and daily instruction. 



Civic and Patriotic Instruction 

The social studies failed to receive any extensive develop- 
ment in the United States before 1890. History and geog- 
raphy were taught in the city schools and in many of the 
states they had been named among the subjects of study 
required by law. They continued, however, to be taught 
largely as fact subjects. As has been pointed out (see p. 470), 
the late eighties and the nineties saw a new quickening of the 
national conscience in regard to the bad political conditions 
that obtained in all sections of the country, but especially in 
the larger cities. Ballot reforms and other changes were ef- 
fected for the sake of political health. At the same time and 
prompted by the same surrounding conditions the educators 
of the country took to heart the possible service that the public 
schools might render in the cause of better citizenship. 
Speaking from the technical standpoint, it was the Herbartian 
influence, which became strong in this cotmtry after 1890, that 
emphasized the utility of the social studies in the development 
of character and the making of citizens. From that time on, 
the social studies began to occupy a larger part of the school 
time, and new conceptions of subject-matter and method were 
developed in the interest of making the schools more effective 
in performing their civic mission. 

The Herbartian conception of the important place to be 
assigned to social studies received its first general introduction 
to American educators through the Report of the Committee 
of Fifteen of the Department of Superintendence of the Na- 
tional Education Association, made in 1895. The Committee 
of Fifteen was divided into three sub-committees, one of which 
was detailed to report on the Correlation of Studies in Ele- 
mentary Education. The report of this Committee placed 



5S8 NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

geography third on the list and history fourth in respect to the 
educational values of school subjects. The conception of his- 
tory study in the schools which the report exhibited was far 
from "pragmatic." It did not stress the inculcation of patriot- 
ism. It did not put history in the schools under any obligation 
other than to reveal to the pupil the meaning of social and 
civil institutions and his relationship to them as a citizen. 

The same philosophical and scientific attitude toward the 
uses of history as a school subject was taken in reports made 
in 1899 by the Committee of Seven of the American Historical 
Association and by the New England History Teachers' Asso- 
ciation. Those leaders among the teachers of history proposed 
to use that subject as a means of civic education by causing it 
to reveal to the student the social, economic, and political 
evolution of his own country in its relationships with other 
countries that have conditioned its life. It seems fair to say 
that the best thought of the present day sees the greatest use- 
fulness of history as a school subject to be in teaching the 
truth, the scientific truth, about every phase of our national 
evolution. 

As a matter of fact, the history which American boys and 
girls have been taught, even during the last generation, has 
pretty largely failed to reach the levels of the theory described 
above. Most of the text-books have failed to include any 
significant amount of material relating to the economic, social, 
and political evolution of our country and have devoted an 
excessive amount of space to wars. Political events have been 
treated in scrappy topical fashion and have failed to reveal any 
large principles of social control. The presentation of our 
relationships with other countries has often been partial and, 
for that reason, unfair. 

There seems to have been in this country a noticeable 
change during and since the war to a more conscious effort 
to inculcate patriotism through school subjects. Scientific 
history has come in for sharp criticism on the part of many 
persons, who are urging a frankly "pragmatic" use of the 
materials of history. Some of the proposals apparently reflect 



A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EDUCATION 559 

the Prussian attitude and practice, the results of which have 
previously been noted in this volume, and would introduce 
into the schools a consciously provocative type of civic in- 
struction. 

There is certainly justification for the desire to attach the 
child to the historical tradition of his country, to give him a 
feeling of pride in the character and the achievements of his 
forebears, to make him conscious of the meaning of the in- 
stitutions under which he lives through a sympathetic account 
of how they have developed, and thus to inculcate in him a love 
for his countr)^ and a desire to serve it in any way demanded 
of him. There should be no place in the public schools for 
instruction in history that is cynical, merely faultfinding, and 
full of the spirit of condescension. The child must become 
attached to the social family of which he is a part: then let 
him become familiar with and appreciative of the works of 
"the fathers." 

On the other hand, an altogether laudatory and uncritical 
treatment of the nation's history and of the persons that have 
figured in that narrative would serve us extremely ill. It would 
work against the attitude of fair and thoughtful examination 
of current social problems on their merits. It would create 
an excessively conservative attitude that is dangerous in a 
time of tremendous social change. It would tend to develop 
a national self-conceit that would make impossible an attitude 
proper in the rapidly increasing importance of our international 
relationships. It would tend to perpetuate and make more 
completely universal the bombast and evasion that pass all 
too often for a real treatment of important political issues. 

The recommendations in respect to the study of civics made 
by the sub-committee of the Committee of Fifteen on the 
Correlation of Studies in Elementary Education is instructive 
both as showing the small place which civics occupied in the 
curriculum in 1895 and as showing the very limited conception 
which the Committee had of the uses to be made of it. "The 
study of the outlines of the Constitution," so runs the re- 
port, "for ten or fifteen weeks in the final year of the ele- 



56o NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION SINCE 1789 

mentary school has been found of great educational value. 
Properly taught, it fixes the idea of the essential threefoldness 
of the constitution of a free government and the necessary in- 
dependence of each constituent power, whether legislative, 
judicial, or executive. This and some idea of the manner and 
mode of filling the official places in these three departments, 
and of the character of the duties with which each department 
is charged, lay foundations for intelligent citizenship." And 
these words constitute the complete discussion by the Com- 
mittee of the teaching of civics in the public schools. 

Perhaps there is no subject now taught in the schools in 
which greater progress has been made than in civics, civil 
government, or citizenship. The new civics treats govern- 
ment not as a machine, the mechanical parts of which are 
to be remembered, but as a living process, which is to be under- 
stood and felt. Stress is laid upon community civics, social 
and economic problems, and practical conditions of govern- 
ment. Where opportunity arises, the pupil is actually made a 
participant in some public service. 

The World War has revealed in a way that was never before 
realized in the United States the complexity of the problem 
of training for citizenship, and has stimulated educators to a 
reexamination of the objectives and the ways and means of 
civic education. In the educational reconstruction that will 
follow, it is certain that the social studies will be given a 
position of new and enlarged significance. To furnish the 
pupils of school age with a store of information that will serve 
for making sound judgments in regard to matters of public 
policy, to develop in them habits of mind that make for judg- 
ments and decisions on the basis of facts, to habituate them to 
attitudes of public service, to create in them an unselfish 
loyalty to community and national and international welfare, — 
those are the supreme objectives in the education of citizens 
for a democracy. 



INDEX 



Academic freedom, in Condorcet's 
Report, 2if. ; restrictions upon, 
in German Universities, i47f., 
203 ; under the French Imperial 
University, 35!'.; under Louis 
Napoleon Bonaparte, 75!. 

Academy, the (U. S.), 36of. ; 
maintenance of, 361 ; curricu- 
lum of, 36if.; its suitability to 
contemporary social conditions, 
361; spread of, 36 if.; teacher 
training in, 405f. 

Academy, the (France), as a unit 
of educational administration, 
38, 56, 72, 96. 

Academy Council, the, 72, q6. 

Accrediting of high schools, state 
systems of, 458f,, S38f. 

Adams, John Quincy, 374. 

Addresses to the German Nation, 
Fichte's, i26f. 

Adjunct teachers, 73. 

Administration, bureaucratic, of 
the German Empire, 178; effi- 
cient, of, i7q; of Prussia, 203. 

Administration, educational, cen- 
tralization of, see centralization 
of educational administration. 

.Administrative county, see Regier- 
imgsbezirke. 

Administrative Provisions Act, 
the, 304. 

Admission Examinations, Commis- 
sion of Colleges in New England 
on, 458. 

.\dvM education, 61, 73. 

Agriculture, as a national inter- 
est, 426. 

Agriculture, Commissioner of, 478; 
Department of, see Department 
of Agriculture; predominance of, 
in early American life, 335. 

Akron School Law, the, 404, 44of- 

.\labama, high school legislation 
in» 533 ; organization of state 
department of education in, 500. 

561 



.Alienism, 490. 

AUgemeine Landrecht, 122. 

Altenstein, Baron von, his con- 
ception of folk education, i44f.; 
death of, 159. 

American conditions of education, 
contrast between European and, 
I ; European iniluence on, 379f., 
4iif. 

American life, simplicity of early, 
334f.; early, did not require 
much academic learning, 33Sf. 

Americanization, in the Smith- 
Towner Bill, 492. 

.■\nglicans, see Established Church. 

•Apprentices, abuse of, 234. 

Apprentice schools, 73. 

Arizona, federal grants on admis- 
sion of, 480; high school legis- 
lation in, 533 ; - organization of 
state department of education 
in, 502. 

Arrondissement, committee of the, 
58. 

Articles of Confederation, degree 
of political union under, 324. 

Attendance, average, in various 
states, 495 ; compulsory (Eng- 
land), Newcastle Commission 
on, 26of., 277, 278, 279, 309: 
(France) 81; (Prussia) 134; 
(U. S.) 462f., S46f.; school, 
Newcastle Commission on, 
259- 

Attendance committees, school, 
created, 279; abolished, 297. 

Authorities, education, central, 
local, state, see education author- 
ities, central; education authori- 
ties, local, state. 

Baccalaureate, the, I03f. 
Bell, Andrew, 237. 
Berlin, University of, 131. 
Bismarck, Count Otto von, made 
minister-president, 172; his po- 



562 



INDEX 



litical attitudes, 172; his dip- 
lomatic policy after 1871, 178; 
his conflict with the Catholic 
Church, 185, IQ2; his attempts 
to suppress Socialism, iQ2f.; dis- 
missed from office, ig7. 

Black Laws, the, 429. 

Blair Bill, the, 43Sf. 

Board of Charity Commissioners, 
285. 

Board of Education, the (Eng- 
land), created, 293; powers and 
duties of, under the Fisher Act, 
3o6ff. 

Board of education, the city, 1861- 
90, 448f., i8qo-present, 522f.; 
relationship between, and the 
superintendent, 523f.; member- 
ship of, 525; procedure of, 

52Sf. 

Boards of managers, of non-pro- 
vided schools, powers and duties 
of, 297. 

Board of Regents, 348, 501. 

Boer War, the, 300. 

Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon, presi- 
dent of the Second Republic, 62 ; 
Prince-President, 74; Emperor 
of the French, 74; educational 
policies of, 74f. 

Borough government in late eight- 
eenth century, 22sf.; reconstitu- 
tion of, 247. 

Bourgeois class, the, under the 
old regime, 8; under the Consti- 
tution of 17Q1, lof.; composi- 
tion and grades of, under the 
Third Republic, 112. 

Bryce, James (Lord), 291. 

Bryce Commission, the, on Sec- 
ondary Education, 291 ; findings 
of, 29if.; recommendations of, 

292f. 

Brougham, Henry (Lord), 239, 
241. 

Brethren of the Christian Schools, 
Napoleon I's attitude toward, 
35 ; letters of obedience of, 
accepted in lieu of certificate, 
44; superiority of the schools 
of, in 1833, So. 

British and Foreign School So- 
ciety, 237, 249, 252. 

Bureaucratic administration of 
education in Prussia, see admin- 
istration. 



Bureau of Education, in ministry 
of the Interior, 129; the fed- 
eral, 427, 488f. 

Bureau of Labor Statistics, 488. 

Burrowes, Thomas H., 404. 

Burschenschajten, 148. 



Cabinet Order of William IL, on 
the social studies, i93f. 

California, high school legislation 
in, 534- 

Cambridge Universitv, 230, 271, 
316. 

Cardinal Principles of Secondary 
Education, 540. 

Carlsbad Resolutions, the, i47f. 

Carnot, minister of public instruc- 
tion, 64; his circular to primary 
teachers, 64; his education bill, 
64f. 

Caste lines in education, in Eng- 
land in the eighteenth century, 
226f.; hardening of (France) 
after 1849; presence of, under 
the Third Republic, ii2f. ; 
(Prussia) in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, 122; Siivern proposes to 
abolish, 141 ; as shown in the 
Self-Confessions of Frederick 
William IIL, i43f. ; teachers 
propose abolition of, 161: 
strengthened by Regulations of 
1854, 170; absence of, in the 
United States, 41 2f., S36f. 

Catholic Church, the, educational 
importance of under the old 
regime, 9; the National Assem- 
bly and, 11; Napoleon I. and, 
34f. ; favored in education by 
the Restoration Monarchy, 44; 
under the Law of 1850, 68f.: 
reprisals against, 80; curtail- 
ment of educational influence of, 
under the Third Republic, 98f.; 
Bismarck's conflict with, i8sf.; 
desire of, in the United States 
for partition of education funds, 
407f. 

Catholic Religion, the, a basis of 
instruction under the Imperial 
University, 37. 

Central education authorities, see 
education authorities, central, 
state. 

Central School, the, 314. 



INDEX 



563 



Central Schools, under Daunou's 
Law, 2Q, small success of, 31; 
continued under the Consulate, 

35- 

Centralization, of educational ad- 
ministration (France) under the 
Imperial University, 37; under 
the Law of 1850, 7 if.; under 
Napoleon III, 76; in accord- 
ance with French policies, 76f., 
92: (Prussia) after 1807, i29f.; 
after 1871, 202f. ; problems con- 
nected with, in the U. S., 493. 

Centralization, of government 
under the Third Republic, 7gf. 

Centralization, of state educational 
administration, tendency toward, 
in the United States, 49Sf. 

Charity schools, in the early 
eighteenth century, 231. 

Charter of 1830, the, and private 
education, 50, 61. 

Chartist Movement, the, 245. 

Chief state school officer, see edu- 
cation authorities, state. 

Churches, and education, in early 
national period, 363. 

Child labor, increase of, as result 
of the industrial revolution, 
234; abuses of, 234f. 

Child Labor laws, see facto^ leg- 
islation. 

Children's Bureau, 488. 

Circle, as local inspection unit, 
132. 

Citizenship, education for, see 
civics, curriculum, social studies, 
patriotism, etc. 

City government, 447. 

City school administration- (United 
States) 1861-90, 446ff. ; 1890- 
present, 522f. 

City superintendent of schools, be- 
ginning of office of, 398; status 
of, 1861-90, 4Siff.; status of, 
1890-present, 523f. 

Civics, instruction in morals and, 
82ff.; in elementary curriculum, 
560; Report of Committee of 
Fifteen on, S59f.; present reor- 
ganization of, 560. 

Civil Service Reform, 471. 

Clarendon Commission, see Pub- 
lic Schools Commission. 

Classics, German, study of, forbid- 
den in seminaries, i66. 



Clayton Act, 473. 

Coalition, the, 301. 

Cockerton Judgment, the, 294!. 

Colburn's First Lessons in Arith- 
metic, 358. 

Colleges, under the Imperial Uni- 
versity, 36f.; communal, 61, 
103; royal, 61. 

Colleges, state, 508; the training 
of secondary teachers in, 551. 

Commerce, Department of, 473. 

Commerce and Labor, Department 
of, 472, 3- 

Commission on Country Life, the 
Federal, 510. 

Commission on Industrial Educa- 
tion, Massachusetts, 543. 

Commission on Wartime Emer- 
gency in Education and the Pro- 
gram of Readjustment after the 
War, 491 ; on continuation 
schools, 546. 

Commissions scolaires, 81. 

Commissioner of education, state, 
see education authorities, state. 

Commissioner of Education, Unit- 
ed States, 426, 48Sf. 

Committee of Fifteen, Report of 
the, 557. 

Committee of Privy Council on 
Education, created, 252 ; policies 
of, 252f. ; extension of powers 
of, 253. 

Committee of Seven, of the Amer- 
ican Historical Association, 558. 

Committee of Ten on Secondary 
School Studies, Report of the, 

539f- 

Committee on the Reorganization 
of Secondary Education, 540. 

Committee of management, of 
parish schools (Prussia), 132. 

Common School Journal, the, 
384. 

Common School Revival, the, 
378f. 

Communes, the, share of, in the 
costs of primary education, 102. 

Concordat, the, 34. 

Condorcet's Report to the Legis- 
lative Assembly, i7ff.; primary 
schools in, 18; secondary schools 
in, 18; institutes in, 19; lycees 
in, 20; national scholars in, 21; 
National Society of Arts and 
Sciences in, 21; academic free- 



S64 



INDEX 



dora in, 2if. ; estimate of the 

significance of, 23. 
Conference on Secondary School 

Reform, 211. 
Confessional distribution of 

schools, 131. 
Congregational Church, 408. 
Congregations, religious, engaged 

in teaching, sec Brethren of the 

Christian Schools, Catholic 

Church, etc. 
Continental Congress, powers of, 

324- 

Connecticut, state aid for schools 
in, 390. 

Conservation movement, the, 474. 

Conservative Party, causes of dis- 
satisfaction with, after 1900, 
300. 

Conservatism, primary schools as 
agencies of, in France, Sif. 

Consolidation of schools, 444; see 
also education authorities, local. 
Constitution of 1791, political 
reforms of, 9; enlarged impor- 
tance of education under, iif. 

Constitution of 1795, 28f.; private 
schools allowed under, 29. 

Constitution of 1850, 155; influ- 
ence of, in German history, 156- 

Constitution of the United States, 
32sff. ; the strength of the fed- 
eral government under, 32 6f.; 
democracy in, 328f.; silent on 
education, 338. 

Consultative Committee, 293. 

Continuation Education Bill of 
1917, Provisions of, logff. 

Continuation schools (Germany), 
i82f.; (England), 308; (United 
States), 54Sf. 

Continental Congress, the, and the 
beginnings of federal land grants 
for education, 339; powers of, 

324- 
Convention, the, political condi- 
tions under, 24f.; educational 
developments under, 25f.; final 
educational enactment of, 29; 
special schools established by, 

36. 
Coordination of primary and sec- 
ondary education, incomplete, 

iiSf. 
Compulsory attendance, see at- 
tendance, compulsory. 



Corporations, school, created in 

Prussia, 201. 
Correlation of Studies, Committee 

on, in Elementary Education, 

557, 559- 

Corruption, political, 422f. 

Cosmopolitan attitude, of eight- 
eenth century German literary 
men and philosophers, i25f. 

Costs, of education, distribution 
of. See financial support, state 
aid, grants, etc. 

Costs, of instruction, in the va- 
rious states, 495. 

Cotton culture, importance of, in 
the South, 37of.; and slavery, 

371- 

Country Life Movement, the, 59of. 

County, administrative, see Regier- 
ungsbezirke. 

County board of education, 
powers and duties of, 5i7f. 

County-boroughs, 281. 

County-borough councils, 281 ; 
made local education authori- 
ties, 296. 

County councils, 28of.; educa- 
tional activities of, before 1902, 
288; made local education au- 
thorities, 296. 

County norma! schools, 553. 

County superintendent, office of, 
beginnings of, 397 ; early func- 
tions of, 397; 1861-1890, 44if.; 
1890-present, 520; in Maryland, 
517. 

County unit, the, Si5f.; local 
supervision under, 519. 

Cojip d'etat of 1851, 74. 

Cours complementaires, 107. 

Cousin, Victor, Report on German 
Education, 50, i3off. 

Cowper-Temple clause, 277, 298. 

Criticism, higher, 157. 

Cross Commission on Elementary 
Education, Report of the, 
28iff. ; on "payment by re- 
sults", 282 ; on the divided sys- 
tem, 283; on secondary instruc- 
tion in elementary schools, 283f. 

Cultural unification in the United 
States, 4i5ff. 

Cultural unity, influence of rapid 
communication upon, 4i8f. 

Curriculum, elementary, effect on, 
of "payment by results, 263; 



INDEX 



56s 



extension of, into field of sec- 
ondary education (England), 
2Syi., 294f. 
Curriculum, primary, secularized 
and expanded, 82 ; nationalized, 

82ff. 

Curriculum of teachers seminaries, 

i38f.; 162, i87f. 
Cutler, Manasseh, 341. 



Dartmouth College Case, 363. 

Daunou's Law, 29. 

Davis, Representative, 481. 

Day schools, private, Newcastle 
Commission on, 257; teachers 
in, 257. 

Day schools, public, Newcastle 
Commission on, 256. 

Dame schools, 230, 255. 

Defective children, education of, 
284, 304. 

Democracy, American, contrasted 
with European, 336, the result 
of free land, 337; nature of 
English, in eighteenth century, 
223; political, in England, 273f., 
311; social, in England, 312; in 
Western education, i ; favors 
universal education, 2 ; move- 
ment toward, in Prussia in the 
forties, 151; the federal consti- 
tution and, 328f.; the constitu- 
tions of the states and, 329f.; 
the frontier and, 33off . ; and 
public education, 337; educa- 
tional necessities of, recognized 
by the Provisional Government, 
64; as represented in Carnot's 
Bill, 64f . ; as represented in 
Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire's Bill, 
65. 

Democracy in education, the 
French Revolution and, 4of. ; 
lack of in Prussian education, 
211; lack of under Napoleon I., 
34f. ; limited nature of, under 
the Third Republic, inf.; 
under the German Republic, 
217; in England, 3i2ff. 

Department, the (France), shares 
in costs of primary education, 
57,102; council of, made educa- 
tion authority for primary edu- 
cation, 76; composition and 
powers of council of, 93, 96f. 



Department of Agriculture, cre- 
ated, 426; given representation 
in the Cabinet, 473 ; educational 
activities of, 487. 

Department of Education (Prus- 
sia), in the Ministry of Reli- 
gion, etc., 130. 

Department of Education, a fed- 
eral, created, 426; powers of, 
426f. 

Department of Labor, educational 
activities of, 487f. 

Department of Superintendence, 
435, 496. 

Deputy Secretary of State for 
Schools, 387. 

Diesterweg, Adolph, i46f., 160. 

Disraeli, 273. 

District system, the, evolution of, 
in Massachusetts, 3S2ff.; adapt- 
ed to pioneer conditions, 353f.; 
spread of, 354; early develop- 
ments away from, 391 f.; prog- 
ress away from, 444 ; between 
1861-1890, 443f.; increasing in- 
adequacy of, 51 if., present 
status of, Si3f. 

Dissenters, 251. 

Divided system, not adopted in 
United States, 409. 

Domestic system, in England, 
221. 

Dreyfus Case, the, loof. 



East, the, 368f. ; conflict between, 

and the South, 372. 
Eaton, General John, 435. 
Ecoles manuelles d'apprentissage, 

107. 
Ecoles nationales professionelles, 

107. 
iEcoles pratiques de commerce 011 

d'industrie, 108. 
Ecole unique, 117. 
Economic conditions, in U. S., 

1861-1890, 4i6f. ; 1890-present, 

469f. 
Economic expansion under the 

Empire, 179, i98f. 
Education Act of 1902, the, 295f. ; 

Liberal opposition to, 296, 29S, 

300. 
Education Act of 1918, the, 305ff.; 

strong points of, 305 ; local au- 
thorities under, 306; balance of 



566 



INDEX 



power between local and cen- 
tral authorities under, 3o6f.; at- 
tendance provisions of, 3o8f.; 
status of private schools under, 
309; financial arrangements of, 
307 ; provision of scholarships 
under, 310. 

Education authorities, ad hoc, 
277. Education authorities, cen- 
tral (France), in Talleyrand's 
Bill, IS ; in Condorcet's Report, 
22; under the Imperial Univer- 
sity, 36; under the July Mon- 
archy, 58, 61 ; under the Second 
Republic and the Second Em- 
pire, 71, 75; under the Third 
Republic, 94f.; (Prussia), after 
the early reform of education, 
i29f.; in recent times, 202f.; 
(England), Committee of Privy 
Council created, 252; Educa- 
tion Department, 254; Science 
and Art Department, 270; 
Board of Education, 293 ; 
powers of, under the Fisher 
Act, 3o6f. 

Education authorities, local 
(France), in Daunou's Law, 30; 
under the Restoration Mon- 
archy, 44; under the July Mon- 
archy, 57 ; under the Second Re- 
public and the Second Empire, 
72f., 76; under the Third Re- 
public, 96f.; (Prussia), after the 
early reform of education, i3if.; 
in recent times, 203ff.; (Eng- 
land), the school boards created, 
277f. ; under the Education Act 
of 1902, 296; under the Fisher 
Act, 3o6f.; (United States), 
1789-1828: 3Siff.; 1828-1881, 
30iff.; 1861-1890, 443f.; 1890- 
present, S09ff. 

Education authorities, state, 1789- 
1828, 347ff.; 1828-1861, 38off.; 
1861-1890, 436ff.; 1890-present, 
49Sff. 

Education Department, 254, 293. 

Education Law of 1850 (France), 
68ff. 

Education, vocational, in Ger- 
many, i8iff. 

Educational administration, see 
education authorities, central, 
local, state. 



Educational opportunity, equali- 
zation of, among the states, 492 ; 
inequalities of, 494f.; equahza- 
tion of, within the state, S04f. 

Educational theory, distrust of, in 
Regulations of 1854, i64f. 

Eichhorn, von, minister of educa- 
tion, 159; attitude of, i58f. 

Eiiilieitsschule, 215. 

Elementary Education Act, of 
1870, 274f.; of 1876, 278; of 
1880, 279; of 1891, 284. 

Elementary education (England), 
relation of, to secondary educa- 
tion, 313; local authorities for, 
296; extensions of, 284; Cross 
Commission on, 281; supply of, 
increased by Act of 1870, 278; 
state of, in 1S38, 25of.; Report 
of Newcastle Commission on, 
255; state of, in 1870, 27Sf.; 
financial support of, Newcastle 
Commission on, 258. 

Elementary education (United 
States) , tendency of, to extend 
at the top, 403ff.; early curri- 
culum of, 357; material side of, 

359- 

Elementary school, extension of, 
upward, 401. 

Elementary schools, higher grade, 
287. 

Emancipating Edict of 1807, 129. 

Emigration, from Germany, 179, 
180. 

Employment of children, 235, 246. 

Endowed Schools Act, 270. 

Endowed Schools Commission, 
270. 

England, economic conditions in, 
in late eighteenth century, 221; 
social conditions, in, 222; po- 
litical conditions in, 2 23f.; as 
showing influence of industrial 
revolution in society and edu- 
cation, 3. 

English education, nationalism in, 

317- 

English government, in late eight- 
eenth century, 223. 

Epileptic children, education of, 
284, 304. 

Equalization, of primary school 
opportunities (Prussia), 201; of 
educational opportunity in the 
Smith-Towner Bill, 492 



INDEX 



567 



Esch-Cummins Act, 473. 

Established Church Party, 251. 

European conditions of education, 
contrast between American and, 
I. 

European influence, on American 
education, the question of, 379^-) 
4iif. 

Evening schools, Newcastle Com- 
mission on, 257. 

Examination commission, of the 
province, 131, 204. 

Examinations, University' Board, 
289. 

Executive departments, of the fed- 
eral government, 326, 473f. 

Ex officio state board of educa- 
tion, 386, 439, 505. 

Ex officio state school officers, 347, 
382f. 

Ex-standard classes, 287, 294. 

Factory legislation (England), 
235, 246, 274; (United States), 

47Sf- 
Falk, Minister of Education, 186. 
Farm Loan Bureau, the Federal, 

474- 

Federal aid, for agriculture and 
mechanic arts, 425, 478f.; agi- 
tation for, to southern educa- 
tion, 435f.; agitation for, for 
vocational education, 481 ; see 
land grants, Morrill Land Grant 
Act, Smith-Lever Act, Smith- 
Hughes Act, etc. 

Federal bond for Vocational Edu- 
cation, 483f. 

Federal Bureau of Education, see 
Bureau of Education. 

Federal departments, new, 473f. 

Federal government, the partici- 
pation of, in education, 338f.; 
373f.; 426f.; 47Sff.; 487f-; new 
demands for, 48of f . ; powers of, 
325f . ; uncertainty regarding pow- 
ers of, 326f . ; increased powers 
of, after 1861, 424f.; extensions 
of, after 1890, 472f.; new de- 
partments of, 473 ; increased 
powers of, during World War, 
490. 

Federal Trade Commission, 473, 

Federalist party, 327. 

Ferry, Jules, 83f. 

Ferry Laws, the, 8iff. 



Fichte, his earlier cosmopolitan- 
ism, 126; his Addresses to the 

German Nation, i26f.; his empha- 
sis on nationalism, 127; his 
democratic ideal of education, 
128. 

Financial aid, to education ; early 
state, 347f.; state, to religious 
effort in education, 364; method 
of allocating state, 464f. 

Financial support, of education, as 
recommended by the Newcastle 
Commission, 258; according to 
the Fisher Act, 307f.; in the 
United States, 44Sf. ; in Prussia, 

200f. 

Financial support, of primary edu- 
cation (France), 57, loif. 

Fisher Act, the, see Education Act 
of 1918. 

Five per cent fund, the, 374. 

Folk education, conservative atti- 
tude toward, i39ff.; liberal at- 
titude toward, 128, I45ff.; 
actual conditions of, 1807-40, 
I46ff. 

Folk schools, general principles 
underlying conduct of, accord- 
ing to the Regulations of 1854, 
i67f.; curriculum of, i68f., 
iSgf.; nationalistic emphasis in, 
190; confessional distribution 
of, 189; method in, 210; closed 
in character of, 2i2f. 

Foreign language, as medium of 
instruction, 409, SSSf. 

Forster, 275. 

Fourteenth Amendment, the, 429. 

Freedmen's Bureau, the, 428. 

Free primary education (France), 
permissive under Law of 1850, 
73 ; encouraged under Law of 
1867, 77; universal, 81. 

Free public schools in the United 
States, 398ff. ; way of progress 
to, 399f.; in Massachusetts, 
399f . ; in Pennsylvania, 400 ; in 
the South, 398; practically 
achieved by the time of the 
Civil War, 400. 

Free tuition, in elementary schools 
(England), 277, 279 284; in 
primary schools proposed by 
Talleyrand, 13 ; in all academic 
institutions, proposed by Con- 
dorcet, 21; for one-fourth of 



568 



INDEX 



pupils under Daunou's Law, 30; 
for poor children in Central 
Schools, 30 ; for poor children in 
primary schools under Law of 
1833, 56; for poor children in 
primary schools under Law of 
1850, 73; for poor children in 
Prussia, 134; in folk schools, 
201. 

Frederick the Great, 12 if. 

Frederick William II, 121, 124. 

Frederick William III, 124, i42ff. 

Frederick William IV, iSif., 
i56f., i58f., i6if. 

French Revolution, the, and edu- 
cation, 7ff.; educational results 
of, 4of. 

Frontier, the, meaning of, 33of.; 
life on, 33 if.; manhood suffrage 
a product of, 332f.; the end of, 
474- 

Gemeinde, 13 if. 

General Regulations for Village 
Schools, 121. 

General Regulations of 1872, the, 
i87ff. 

Geography, in the teachers' sem- 
inaries, 166; nationalistic uses 
of, 2O0f. 

German Empire, the colonial pol- 
icy of, after 1890, ig8; Near 
East policy of, igg, the forma- 
tion of, 173; political auspices 
of i74f.; constitution of, i76f.; 
education not a concern of, 177; 
economic expansion under, 179!. 

German Republic, the, constitu- 
tion of, 216; educational prin- 
ciples of, 217. 

German society, exclusive consti- 
tution of, 2Ilf. 

German system of education, 
strength and weaknesses of, 214. 

Girls, separate primary schools for, 
73, 77; secondary education of, 
104. 

Gladstone, 273. 

Government participation, agita- 
tion for increased (England), 
24gf. 

Government, central, extension of 
powers of (England), in late 
eighteenth century, 225; in 
middle of nineteenth century, 
247f, reorganization of, 2 79f. 



Graded schools, 404f. 

Graduate study of education, 

S5if. 

Grammar schools, English, in 
eighteenth century, 226; in 
Taunton Commission Report, 
267. 

Grandmaster, of the Imperial Uni- 
versity, powers of, 37f., 39. 

Grants, federal, see landgrants, 
federal ; parliamentary, see par- 
liamentary grants, financial sup- 
port of education, etc. 

Great Public Schools, inquiry into 
conditions in, 265. 

Guizot, 47, S2f. 

Gymnasium standardized, 130. 



Hall, Samuel R., 405. 

Harnisch, 138. 

Hartford Convention, 327. 

Hatch Experiment Station Act, 
478f. 

Hegel, decline of influence of, 157. 

High school, the, an extension of 
the elementary school upward, 
40if.; early, in Massachusetts,- 
40if. ; 1861-90; 4S4f.; opposi- 
tion to, 454, 5 ; established 
through judicial divisions, 4SSf.; 
dual nature of, 457; early efforts 
at standardizing, 457!.; 1890- 
present; S29f.; offers three dis- 
tinct types of education, S3of.; 
social meaning of, 53 1; growth 
of, after 1890, S3if.; ways of 
providing, S32f.; differences in, 
opportunity in various states, 
535; flexibility of, 535^-; the 
junior, 536f.; the "(2osmopoH- 
tan", 537f.; and the college, 
538f.; accrediting of, 539; rela- 
tions of, with normal schools, 
548f. 

Higher education, in France, un- 
der the Third Republic, i04f.; 
in the United States, 362f.; see 
also. Land grants, federal, 
Hatch Experiment Station Act, 
etc. 

Higher primary schools, 52f., S4f., 
106 ; vocational aspects of, 
io6ff.; social influence of, ii3f.; 
American high school resembles, 
402. 



INDEX 



569 



Higher grade elementary schools, 
287, 295, 

History, in the teachers semin- 
aries, i66; pragmatic conception 
of school use of, in Prussian 
schools, i94f., 2of.; use of, in 
training for citizenship in 
France, gi ; in elementary 
schools in the United States, 
557, report of Committee of Fif- 
teen on, 557; scientific concep- 
tion of 558; as actually taught, 
558; present tendency to stress 
pragmatic use of, 558f. ; impor- 
tance of, for civic education, 

559- 

Hoar Bill, the, 429. 

Holiday camps, 309. 

House of Lords, powers of, re- 
stricted, 303. 

Housing and Town Planning Act, 
302. 



Immigration, educational influ- 
ences of, 4o6f.; Irish, 407; Ger- 
man, 407; increase of, after 
1861, 417; since 1890, 469. 

Illiteracy, in France, in 1833, 49; 
in the United States, 1918, 491; 
the removal of, in the Smith- 
Towner Bill, 492. 

Indiana, high school legislation in, 

533- 

Industrial combinations, states 
powerless against, 40of. 

Industrial conditions, in the 
United States, 1890-present, 
469f. 

Industrial development; in the 
United States, 368f. ; 41 gf. 

Industrial education, in the United 
States, 459f . ; see vocational 
education. 

Industrial revolution, the, in Eng- 
land, 23iff. ; social effects of, 
232f., 236; political effects of, 
233, 244, 264; in Germany, 179; 
in Western education, i, 3. 

Industry, elaborative, source of 
Germany's economic progress, 
180; response of education *"> 
needs of, i8if. 

Infant School, the, 44, 73, 238, 

255- 
Infant School Society, the, 239. 



Inspection, school (France), 58, 
59, 72, 97; (Prussia), 132, 133, 
186, 204; (England), 252, 261, 
306, 307, 309. 

Institutes, in Condorcet's Report, 
19- 

Instruction muttielle, 44; see mon- 
itorial system. 

Intellectual movements, midcen- 
tury, in Germany, i56f.; oppo- 
sition of Frederick William IV 
to, 159. 

Intermediate school, 314; see 
junior high school. 

Interstate Commerce Commission, 
418, 472, 473. 

Inventions, industrial, importance 
of, in English economic life, 221, 
231. 

Jackson, Andrew, 374f. 
Journahsm, educational, begin- 
nings of, in the United States, 

377- 

July monarchy, the. political and 
economic conditions under, 46; 
attitude of, toward primary ed- 
ucation, 5off. ; active efforts of, 
to improve primary education, 
S4f f . ; improvements in primary 
education under, 6of. 

Junior college, the, 535. 

Junior high school, the, 534, S36f. 

Justices of the peace, powers of, 
225; deprived of their local gov- 
ernment powers, 281. 

Kalamazoo Case, the, 4SSf. 

Kansas, high school legislation in, 
S.53f.; powers of county super- 
intendent in, 52of. 

Kentucky, Virginia and. Revolu- 
tion, the, 327. 

King James version, the, 407. 

Know Nothing Party, the, 409. 

Kreise, see circle, education au- 
thorities, local (Prussia). 

Kiilturkampf, 184 ff . ; an aspect of 
nationalism, 185; its influence 
upon education, 186. 

Labor, Department of, 473. 
Labor, political activities of, 311; 

educational aims of, 311. 
Labor Exchange Art, 302, 



570 



INDEX 



Labor legislation, beginnings of, in 
the United States, 421 ; see fac- 
tory legislation. 

Labor unions (England) early 
status of, 243 ; legislation re- 
garding, 243 ; growth of, 245 ; 
made legal, 274. 

Laboring class consciousness, de- 
velopment of, 245. 

Laicity, of instruction, 82 ; of 
teaching personnel in public 
schools, q8. 

Lakanal, education bill of, 25. 

Lancaster, Joseph, 237. 

Land Grant Colleges, 475 ; experi- 
ment stations in, 478, 479; addi- 
tional support for, 479; in the 
Smith-Lever Act, 482 ; state 
generosity toward, 5o8f. 

Land grant policy, coniirmed by 
Congress, 34iff. ; extended to 
cover new territory, 342 ; signi- 
ficance of, 342f. 

Land grants, federal, for educa- 
tion, beginnings of, 339f.; desire 
of older states to participate in, 
343f . ; on admission of later 
states, 479f. 

Language instruction, legislation 
regarding, by the Convention, 
29. 

Language and literature, German, 
nationalistic use of, 208. 

Lanthenas, 25. 

Latin grammar school, see town 
grammar school. 

Law of 1881, the (France), 81. 

Law of 1889, the (France), loi. 

Law of 1789, the (Massachusetts), 
352. 

Law of 1827, the (Massachusetts), 
399, 40iff. 

Law of 1834, the (Pennsylvania), 
309- 

Legislature, state, the center of 
political government, 330. 

Lehr-iind-leni-frcilieit , 203. 

Lepelletier de Saint Fargeau, 2 5f. 

Les Enfants de Marcel, 88ff. 

"Letters of obedience" accepted in 
lieu of teaching certificates, 
69. 

Legislative Assembly, the, i6ff.; 
political conditions under, i6f.; 
and Condorcet's Report, i6f. 

Leben Jesu, Strauss's, 157. 



Leaving examinations, for gymna- 
sium, established, 130. 

Liberal element in German educa- 
tion, 215. 

Liberalism, the New, 30off.; edu- 
cational developments under, 
303ff. 

Liberal Party, the, 2 73f. 

Local Government (County 
Councils) Act (1888), 28of. 

Local Taxation Act (1890), 281, 
288. 

Lorain's Report, 47f. 

Lycees, in Condorcet's Report, 20; 
under the Imperial University, 
36f. ; at preser.t, 103; see sec- 
ondary education. 

Maintenance allowances, 310. 

Mann, Horace, 384f. 

Manufacture, beginnings of, in the 
New England States, 335; see 
economic conditions, industrial 
revolution, etc. 

Manual training, 459, 542. 

Maryland, county board in, Si7f.; 
local supervision in, 519. 

Marx, Karl, 158. 

Massachusetts, early school legis- 
lation in, 34Sf . ; creates states 
board of education, 383 ; free 
public schools in 399; religious 
question in, 4o8f. ; beginnings of 
professional supervision in, 442 ; 
organization of state education 
department in, 499f.; powers 
and duties of town school au- 
thorities in, 514; local supervi- 
sion in, 518; vocational educa- 
tion law of 1806 in, 542, 543; 
see also education authorities, 
local, state; high school, etc. 

Meals, free, for indigent children, 

304. 

Mediaeval society, a, universal ed- 
ucation in, 122. 

Medical examination of school 
children, 304, 309. 

Method in folk schools, 210. 

Metternich, reactionary policies 
of, 142 ; influence of, in Eng- 
land, 241 ; influence of, in Prus- 
sia, 142, 147. 

Michigan, creates office of state 
superintendent of common 
schools, 38if. 



INDEX 



571 



Middle class examinations, 271. 

Middle schools, the, igof., 213. 

Military establishment, the, and 
the German social constitution, 
212. 

Military service, compulsory, be- 
gun in Prussia, 129. 

Minister of Public Instruction, the 
powers of, under the Third Re- 
public, 95. 

Minister of Religion and Educa- 
tion, 202. 

Minutes of 1846, the, 253. 

Mixed schools, in the South, ques- 
tion of, 433f. 

Monarchists, oppose liberal educa- 
tion policy, 65 ; attack primary 
normal schools, 66f. 

Monitorial system of instruction, 
in England, 237f. ; in France, 
44f. ; in the United States, 365. 

Morals and civics, instruction in 
(France), 82ff. 

Morrill Act, the Second, 479. 

Morrill Land Grant Act, the, 425. 

Mothers, schools for, 304, 309. 

Mountain, the, and its educational 
interests, 25ff. 

Mundella's Act, 279. 

Municipal Corporations Act, of 
183s, 247; of 1888, 280. 



Napoleon I, political conditions 
under, 33f. ; and the church, 34; 
educational policies of, 34f. 

Napoleon III, see Bonaparte, 
Louis Napoleon. 

National Assembly, the, political 
reforms of, 9; educational pro- 
posals of, 12. 

National consciousness in educa- 
tion, development of, in the 
United States, 468ff. 

National conventions, 496. 

National Council of Education, 
the, 438, 439, 442. 

National education in Prussia, es- 
timate of, i49f. 

National Educational Association, 
431, 491, 496. 

National Institute, in Talleyrand's 
^Bill, IS. 

National Institute of Arts and 
Sciences, 30. 

National organizations, 496. 



National Public School Associa- 
tion, 254. 
National Schools, bill to create, 

26f. 

National Society, the, 237, 238, 
249, 252. 

National Society of Arts and Sci- 
ences, 22. 

Nationalism in education, the 
French Revolution and, 4if. 

Nationalism, in the French pri- 
mary school curriculum, 82ff.; 
in English education contrasted 
with, in Prussian education, 
317; indirect development of, in 
English public schools, 318; in- 
difference to, of eighteenth cen- 
tury literary men and philoso- 
phers in Germany, 125; birth of 
German, 125; Fichte and, i26f.; 
a strong political motive in the 
forties (Prussia), 150, i5if.; 
close connection of, with dem- 
ocracy, iS3f.; in German 
schools, 217,; militant, in Ger- 
many after 1890, i96f. ; small 
spirit of, in early American edu- 
cation, 3S8f., tempered by sec- 
tionalism, 373; in Western edu- 
cation, I ; favors universal edu- 
cation, 2. 

Nationality, development of, by 
Civil War, 424. 

Naturalization Bureau, 487. 

Negro children, public schools for, 
433- 

Negro political control in the 
South, 433f. 

Newcastle, Duke of, 255. 

Newcastle Commission, Report of 
the, 255ff.; recommendations of, 
261^, limitations of viewpoint of, 
261. 

New England History Teachers' 
Association, Report of the, 558. 

New England Association of Col- 
leges and Preparatory Schools, 
458. 

New England, public school tradi- 
tion in, 345. 

New Hampshire, local supervision 
in, S19. 

New York, educational adminis- 
tration in, 348f., 387f. ; referen- 
dum on free schools in, 400; re- 
ligious problem in, 408; organi- 



572 



INDEX 



zation of state education depart- 
ment in, SOI, begins a system of 
vocational education, 543. 

New South, tlie, 432, 476f. 

Non-county-borough councils, 296. 

Non-provided schools, 297, 298, 

309- 

Normal school, see primary nor- 
mal school. 

Normal school, estabhshed by the 
convention, 31 ; in U. S., 405, 
461, 548f.; standards of admis- 
sion to, 548; relations of, with 
secondary education, 549 ; ten- 
dency for, to become teachers' 
college, 550. 

Normal training classes, in high 
schools, 553. 

North, the, economic prosperity 
in, 416; a cultural and political 
unity, 424. 

North Carolina, development of 
local education authorities in, 
393 ; a state system of schools 

in, 393- 
North Dakota, federal grants on 

admission of, 480. 
North German Federation, the, 

i73f- 
Northwest Ordinance, the, 340. 
Northwest Territory, the, 339. 
Nursery schools, 304. 

Oberschulkollegium, 121. 

Ohio, local supervision in, 519. 

Ohio Company, the, 340; terms of 
bill of sale to, 341. 

Old Age Pensions Act, 301. 

Old regime, education under, 9, 
social conditions under, yff. 

Opportunity, educational, see edu- 
cational opportunity. 

Ordinance of 1785, the, 339. 

Ordinance of 1787, the, 340. 

Ordinance of 1816, the, 44. 

Organic decree of March 9, 1852, 

Organic primary education law of 
1886, see primary education law 
of 1886. 

Organized Science Schools, 271, 
286. 

Orthodox Party, 408. 

Oswego Normal School, 460. 

Oxford University, 230, 271, 316. 

Owen, Robert. 



Parliament Act (1911), 303. 

Parliamentary grants for educa- 
tion, first, 249; increase of, 254; 
see financial support of educa- 
tion. 

Parliamentary interest in educa- 
tion, early, 239. 

Parochial schools, in the United 
States, see private schools. 

Parochial Schools Bill, the, 330. 

Pastoret, Mme. de, 45. 

Patriotism, birth of German, 125; 
inculcation of (France), 82ff., 
91; (Prussia), 207f.; (United 
States), see history, civics; in- 
directly inculcated in English 
public schools, 318; future of 
instruction in, in England, 

319- 

"Payment by results," 26if.; 263, 
271, 282, 283. 

Peabody Board, the, 434. 

Peasants and workingmen, under 
the old regime, 8. 

Pennsylvania, free public schools 
in, 399, 400; powers and duties 
of township schoolboard in, 515. 

Penny daily press, 245. 

Pensions, for elementary teachers 
(England), 284; for widows of 
teachers (Prussia) 200; for all 
primary teachers, 201 ; law on, 
revised, 201. 

Permissive school legislation, 399. 

Pestalozzi, i37f., 460. 

Philanthropy, educational, in the 
South, 428; in English educa- 
tion, 231, 236f., 258, 294; in 
American education, 36sf. 

Philanthropic education, limited 
objectives of, 24of. 

Physical education, aid for, in the 
Smith-Towner Bill, 492. 

Physical training centers, 209. 

Pioneers, the, spirit of, 331. 

Pius IX, Pope, 69, i8.|f. 

Politics, in the city schools, 45of. 

Poor, the, education of (England), 
230, 236f., 239, 242, 250. 

Popular control, lack of, in Prus- 
sian education, 211. 

Popular sovereignty, 328, 333, 338, 
374, 376. 

Population; foreign-born (U. S.), 
407. 

Prefect, 76, 97. 



INDEX 



573 



Primary education (France), 13, 

18, 26, 2q, 34, 44, 54, S7ff-, 73, 
q2ff., lOlf., II2f. 

Primary norma! schools (France), 
44, 66, 81, 102. 

Primary teacher, the (France), 
49, 56, 64, 103. 

Private schools (England), 264, 
269, 309; see voluntary schools; 
(France), 15, 29, 35!., 37!., 50, 
55, 61, 70, 98f., ICX3; (Prussia), 
13s, 207; (United States), 5S4f. 

Provincial school administration, 
i3if., 203. 

Provision of Meals Act, 304. 

F'rovided schools, 297. 

Prussia, social and economic con- 
ditions in, before 1807, i28f., 
national disaster of, 124; reju- 
venation of, i25ff.; educational 
reforms in, i2gff.; midcentury 
political develonments in, 151 
f . ; assumes leadership in Ger- 
man affairs, i73ff.; in the Ger- 
man Empire, i76f.; influence of, 
on American school system, 
379f., 4i3f. 

Public Health Service, the, 488. 

Public schools, English, 228, 2i4f. 

Public Schools Commission, 265f. 

Public School Society, 408. 

Pupil-teacher system, 253. 

Quanta cura, 185. 
Queen's scholars, 253, 259. 

Raikes, Robert, 236. 

Railroads, activity in construct- 
ing, 41 7f., economic influence of, 
417; political significance of, 
418. 

Rapid communication, political 
significance of, 418. 

Rate bills, 366, 379. 

Realschule, 171. 

Realscliulen I Ordnimg, 171. 

Rector, of the academy, 38, 72, 96. 

Reconstruction Act of 1867, 429. 

Reconstruction, and the South, 
428ff.; congressional, 429; edu- 
cation under presidential, 433 ; 
education under congressional, 

434- 
Reform Act, the, of 1832, 244; of 
1867, 273; of 1884, 279; of 1918, 
394f- 



Regency, see Regierungsbezirke. 
Regierungsbezirke, 132, 204. 
Regulations of 1854, the, i62ff. 
Reichstag, 177. 
Religious Associations Law of 

1904, 1 01. 
Religious difficulty, the, treatment 

of (England), 277, 298; raised 

in the United States, 407ff. 
Restoration Monarchy, the, 43f. 
Revised Code of 1861, 26iff. 
Revolution of 1848, the, in France, 

63 ; in Prussia, iS3ff. 
Robespierre, 24f. 
Royal Lancasterian Institution, 

237- 
Rural education, the Country Life 

Movement and, sogf. 
Rural life, recent improvements 

in conditions of, 510. 
Rural schools, 463, 464, 510. 



Saint-Hilaire, Barthelemy, 65. 

Salle d'hospitditc, 45. 

Salle d'asile, 45, 60. 

Schemes, 306. 

Science and Art Department, 270, 
286, 293. 

Scholarships, provided for in Tal- 
leyrand's Bill, 14; in Condor- 
cet's Report, 21; under the Im- 
perial University, 27; under the 
Third Republic, 115; in training 
colleges, 253; in secondary 
schools (England) provision of, 
310, 313- 

School attendance committees, 
279. 

School boards, 276f., 287, 297. 

School commission, 133. 

School district, the, see district 
system. 

School districts (England), 276. 

School funds, state, 347. 

School Inspection Law of 1872, 
the, 186. 

Schools Inquiry Commission, the, 
265ff. 

Schools of education, university, 

S5if. 
Schuldeputation, 133. 
Sclndgeld, 134. 
Schulkollegiiim, 131. 
Schulralh, 132. 
Schtdverein, 133. 



574 



INDEX 



Schulvorstand, 132. 

Secondary education (England), 
226f., 264, 26sf., 28s, 291, 296, 
3i4f. ; (France), 14, iqf., 30, 
3Sf., 69f., io2f.; (Prussia), 124, 
130, 171, 211, 213; (United 
States), see academy, high 
school, town grammar school. 

Secondary Education, Commission 
on the Reorganization of, 538, 
S40. 

Second Empire, the, 74ff. 

Second Republic, the, 63ff. 

Secretary of the State Board of 
Education, 383 ; see education 
authorities, state. 

Sectionalism, 36Sf.; practical dis- 
appearance of, 470. 

Select Committee of 1S3S, the, 
250. 

Self Confessions of Frederick Will- 
iam III, 143. 

Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 421, 
472. 

Sixteenth section, 339. 

Smith-Hughes Act, the, 483ff., 
544- 

Smith-Lever Act, the 48iff. 

Smith-Towner Bill, the, 492f. 

Social Democracy, effort to sup- 
press, IQ2f. 

Social studies, the, cabinet order 
of William II, on, i93f. see his- 
tory, civics. 

Social opportunity, the schools 
and, 317; large degree of, in 
early American life, 337. 

Socialism, 63, 88, 157, isSf. io2f. 

South, the, 37of. ; reconstruction 
and, 428ff.; economic collapse 
of, 432; the New, 432; public 
school system in, 433 ; federal 
aid for education in, 435f. ; local 
school taxation in, 445. 

Standards, 262f., 278f., 288. 

Standardization of the high school, 
efforts at, 457f. 

State board of education, the, in 
Massachusetts, 3S3f . ; ex oftlcio, 
3S6; see education authorities, 
state. 

State department of education, 
see education authorities, state. 

State aid, methods of allocating, 
503. 

State Socialism, 193. 



State Superintendent of Com- 
mon Schools, 340. 

State Superintendent of Public In- 
struction, see education au- 
thorities, state. 

States Relations Service, 483. 

States rights. 374, 492f. 

Stein, vom. Baron, i2of., 140. 

Sterling-Towner Bill, see Smith- 
Towner Bill. 

Student societies, restrictions upon, 
14S. 

Substantive grant, 307. 

Suffrage, extension of the (Eng- 
land), 244, 273, 279f., 304!.; 
(United States), 328f. 

Sunday School movement, 236. 

Sundays Schools, 236f., 257. 

Sunday School Society, the, 237. 

Superior Council of Public In- 
struction, 71, 75. 94f. 

Supervision of schools, local, in 
the United States, 442, Si8ff. 

Suvern, 140, 147. 

Symnics, John Clark, 341. 



Talleyrand, i2f. 

Taunton Commission, see Schools 
Inquiry Commission. 

Technical education (England), 
27of., 281, 28S. 

Technical Instruction Act, the 
(1SS9). 281, 288. 

Teacher training, see training col- 
leges, teachers seminaries, pri- 
mary normal schools, normal 
schools. 

Teachers college, the, S5of. 

Teachers" institutes, 461, 553. 

Teachers seminaries, established 
in Prussia, 136; Pestalozzian in- 
fluence in, i36f., i4Sf.; religious 
spirit of, i37f. ; curriculum of, 
i38f. ; the battleground of con- 
servative and liberal opinion, 
130, 146, isof.; Frederick Will- 
iam I\', on, i6if.; official re- 
organization of, in 1S54, i62ff. ; 
curriculum of, 1854-72, i63f.; 
dominant religious and patriot- 
ic motive of, i6sf.; expanded * 
curriculum of, according to 
Regulations of 1872, 1S7; not 
connected with higher educa- 
tion, 1S9. 



INDEX 



575 



Teaching congregations, sup- 
pressed by Legislative Assembly, 
17; given legal sanction by Na- 
poleon I, .34 ; activities of, un- 
der the Restoration Monarchy, 
44; members of, compelled to 
take examination for certifi- 
cates, 56; suppressed by Law of 
1904, lOI. 

Tenth Amendment, the, 327, 339. 

Thermidorian reaction, 28. 

Third Republic, the, political con- 
ditions in, 79f. 

Thirteenth Amendment, the, 428. . 

Town, the, break up of, as local 
education authority, 352f.; as 
the unit of educational adminis- 
tration, 5i4f. 

Town grammar school, the, decline 
of, 359f.; change in curriculum 
of, 3O0. 

Town school committee, the, new 
powers for, 39if.; powers and 
duties of, 5i4f. 

Town system, the, 447f.; local su- 
pervision under, 5i8f. 

Township, landgrants to, 351; the 
congressional, 339; as the unit 
of educational administration, 
444f., si4f. 

Township school board, the, pow- 
ers and duties of, 515. 

Trades unions, see labor unions. 

Trades Disputes Act, 302. 

Training colleges, 252, 253, 259. 

Training colleges, day, in univer- 
sity colleges, 290. 

Tilsit, Treaty of, 124. 

Union free school districts, 400. 

Unitarians, 408. 

United Diet, the, 153, i54f. 

Unity, national, degree of among 
the original states, 323 ; under 
the Articles of Confederation, 
324; early threats against, 327. 

Universities, English, 230, 271, 
289f., 3i6f.; Prussian, 131, 203; 
state, 362f., 508. 

University colleges, 289, 290, 316. 

University council, the, 96. 

University extension, 288. 

University, the French Imperial, 
36ff. ; of London, 272, 288, 289, 
290; of the State of New York, 
Board of Regents of, 349, 501. 



Urban districts, councils of, 296. 
Urban population, increase of, 179, 
236, 421, 469. 

Vatican Council, 185. 

Verhdtide, 201. 

Vermont, local supervision in, 519. 

Vienna, Congress of, i42f. 

Villeinage, abolished in Prussia, 
129. 

Virginia and Kentucky Resolu- 
tions, 327. 
-Vocational education, io6f., i8if., 
481, S4iff.; see continuation 
school, industrial education, 
technical education, Smith- 
Huges Act, etc. 

Vocational Education, Commis- 
sion on National Aid to,, 481. 

Voluntary schools, special aid for, 
proposed by Cross Commission, 
283; special aid for, 294; 
changed to non-provided 
schools, 297. 

Voluntary societies, accomplish- 
ments of, 275; encouraged to 
extend their activities, 278; ac- 
tivities of, in providing sec- 
ondary education of lower 
grade, 287 ; see National Society, 
British and Foreign School So- 
ciety, philanthropy. 

Watauga, 332. 

Webster, Noah, 357, 358. 

West, the, 372. 

Wealth, taxable, inequalities of, 
among the states, 494; inequal- 
ities of, within the states, 504. 

Whitbread, 239. 

Whites, Southern, regain political 
control, 431. 

Wickersham, J. P., 431. 

William I, 171, 172, 174. 

William H, 197, 211, 215. 

Wilderspin, Samuel, 238. 

Wisconsin, vocational education 
legislation in, 543. 

Workingmen, peasants and, un- 
der the old regime, 8. 

World War, the, what it revealed, 
49of. ; the schools during, 49if. 

Zeller, Karl August, 136. 



